Maxfield Parrish - Daybreak

Daybreak is one of the most beloved and reproduced images in American art — and one of the most deliberately open-ended. When pressed for its meaning, Parrish was characteristically evasive: “I couldn’t tell a single thing about Daybreak because there isn’t a single thing to tell; the picture tells all there is, there is nothing more.”

What the composition itself suggests is a meditation on renewal: a cool blue-violet dawn giving way to rising light; a standing youth awakening a reclining figure; classical columns framing the scene like a theatrical curtain rising on an Arcadian world. The single-word title was a conscious choice — not a narrative illustration with a plot, but an emotional landscape about the feeling of a new beginning, open to each viewer’s own projection.

First published in 1922, Daybreak became the best-selling art print in American history — at his peak, a Parrish print hung in one in four American homes. Norman Rockwell called him “one of my gods.”

Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966) was born Frederick Parrish in Philadelphia, son of painter and etcher Stephen Parrish. He adopted “Maxfield” — his paternal grandmother’s maiden name — as his professional name. Raised in a Quaker household, he studied at Haverford College and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under the influence of Howard Pyle. By the 1920s he was the highest-paid commercial artist in America, celebrated for his signature saturated jewel-toned glazes and idealized neo-classical imagery.

This particular example is a large-format 1999 edition published by Bruce McGaw Graphics, authorized by the Maxfield Parrish Trust and the American Illustrators Gallery — with gold foil marking that distinguishes it from standard printings and places it at the upper end of the collector market. Comparable examples in good condition trade at $400–$700 CAD at auction and through galleries.

This is a rare original offset lithograph printing of this iconic image.

Print Details

• Image 21″ × 38″ on paper 24″ × 38″
• 1999 edition — Bruce McGaw Graphics, authorized by the Maxfield Parrish Trust / American Illustrators Gallery
• Rare original offset lithograph with gold foil marking
• Large-format edition — above-standard collector value
• A timeless collector’s piece for admirers of American illustration, Art Deco, and golden age fine art.