What’s not to like about an artist-illustrator who partnered with poets and loved jazz? Parker played drums in a band called Jive by Five and is survived by five sons, all of whom play drums professionally. (One is an artist.)

“Robert Parker is one of the most accurate and at the same time most unliteral of painters,” [Marianne Moore] wrote in Arts magazine [1958]. “He combines the mystical and the actual, working both in an abstract and realistic way.” In praising a Parker watercolor of a dog, she added, “A cursive ease in the lines suggests a Rembrandt-like relish for the implement in hand; better yet, there is a look of emotion synonymous with susceptibility to happiness.”

(Richard Sandomir, “Robert Andrew Parker, 96, Dies; Prolific Magazine and Book Illustrator,” New York Times, 1-12-24)

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