Parker, Maynard L., 1900-1976

Bosley dates the house to 1907-09.

From the description of [David B. Gamble house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1946-1949]. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 78300492

From the description of [Robert R. Blacker house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1947-1949] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 79245169

Theodore Irwin purchased the house at 240 North Grand Ave., Pasadena, from Katherine M. Duncan. In "the summer of 1906 Theodore Irwin had called on Charles and Henry Greene to redesign Katherine Duncan's house...By early 1907 it was ready for occupancy, utterly transformed." -- Greene & Greene / Edward R. Bosley. London : Phaidon, 2000, p.95.

From the description of [Theodore Irwin house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1948]. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 81483691

Bosley dates the house to 1911.

From the description of [Nathan Bentz house, Santa Barbara, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [194-?] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 82870680

The house, including alterations, dates to 1902-10, according to: Edward R. Bosley / Greene & Greene. London : Phaidon, 2000.

From the description of [James A. Culbertson house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [194-] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 80964790

Bosley dates the house to 1911-13.

By 1917 "the Culbertson sisters...could no longer afford...the property. It was purchased by Mrs. Dudley P. (Elisabeth S.) Allen...who shortly remarried and became Mrs. Francis Fleury Prentiss." -- Bosley, p. 160.

From the description of [Cordelia A. Culbertson house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1947] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 84195127

In 1911 "Edward Savage Crocker and his wife purchased Dr. Crow's house. It was Crocker who was responsible for doubling the size of the property by purchasing land to the west of the residence and enhancing it with extensive gardens and outbuildings." -- Greene & Greene / Edward R. Bosley. London : Phaidon, 2000. p. 145.

Bosley dates the house to 1909-10.

From the description of [S.S. Crow house, Pasadena, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1947] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 81419681

Additional image titles from Greene & Greene / Edward R. Bosley. London : Phaidon, 2000.

Bosley dates the house to 1908-11.

From the description of [Charles M. Pratt house, Ojai, Calif.] [graphic] / Maynard Parker [photographer] ; [Greene & Greene, architects]. [circa 1947] (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 81800510

Biographical Note

Maynard L. Parker (1900-1976), known sometimes as "Mike," was born and raised in Vermont. Parker worked in New England at a variety of jobs, including office boy, machinist, and gardener, before turning to photography as a profession. Parker traveled to California three times in the 1920s, finally settling in Los Angeles in 1929. He and his wife, Annie, lived in the Echo Park neighborhood, where Parker built a house on Lemoyne Street designed by a draftsman in architect Richard Neutra's office. The New England saltbox-style house served as residence and studio, as well as the backdrop for many of Parker's published photographs. Parker's personal interests included archery, home renovation, and building furniture. [See photocopies of Maynard and Annie Parker's journals, and interview transcript with Ann Carawan and Diane Parker, February 14, 2008, in collection files].

Parker taught himself photography in the 1920s, achieving success in the amateur photography contests in which he participated. In 1927 he was hired as a bookkeeper for the Mott Studios of Photography, a firm specializing in architectural photography. By 1930 he was employed as a full-time professional photographer for Mott Studios. In 1936, he was a photographer for Skinner Photo Arts, another Los Angeles studio. Parker received his first major private commission in 1938, photographing the Sunset Boulevard store of jeweler Paul Flato, which allowed Parker to hone his considerable skills in dramatic lighting and creative set-ups. By 1940, Parker had come to the attention of Elizabeth Gordon. She became editor of House Beautiful in 1941, and thus began an affiliation between the two that lasted until 1964, when Gordon left the magazine. Parker also came to know a number of architects, designers, and builders, both through his relationship with House Beautiful and his other commercial work.

Parker established Maynard L. Parker Fine Photographs in 1938, changing the name to Maynard L. Parker Modern Photography in 1940. While Parker utilized family and a few assistants to help manage the business, he generally worked alone on assignments. Using an antique 4x5-inch camera and a complicated lighting system, he achieved dramatic effects. He often used a wide-angle lens to heighten a location's salient features, and he fearlessly scaled rooftops to achieve the optimum vantage point. Occasionally, he placed both his camera and lights underneath furniture. Parker's black-and-white outdoor work relied on stark shadows and high contrast to emphasize a garden's structure, form, and texture. He rarely created test shots, and often completed shoots with limited amounts of film. Parker routinely sent images from one assignment to multiple publications to maximize his output. He developed a photographic inventory of celebrity residences that he could market to magazines if commissions slowed down. He also planned family vacations to the East Coast, photographing the work of various architects and designers as he crossed the country. Parker's relationships and entrepreneurial efforts helped him build a client base that included hundreds of architects, designers, builders, design studios, retail furnishings businesses, and shelter magazines.

Parker undertook much of his House Beautiful work on extensive trips on both the East and West coasts. Accompanied by Joseph Howland, the magazine's garden editor from 1948 to 1956, the two followed Elizabeth Gordon's mandate to capture "beautiful gardens maintained by a family." As a consequence, Parker visually documented gardens by some of the nation's premiere landscape designers of the era.

Among the architects, designers, and builders with whom Parker worked extensively were his friend and pioneering modernist architect Harwell Hamilton Harris; James E. Dolena, one of the foremost architects working in the Hollywood Regency style; Cliff May, the popularizer of the modern California ranch house and a close personal friend; Pasadena-based architect Wallace Neff; Robert Stanton, a Carmel-based architect and close personal friend; Paul R. Williams, a Los Angeles-based African-American architect; Frank Lloyd Wright, to whom Parker was introduced by Elizabeth Gordon; landscape architects Tommy Church and Arthur and Marie Berger; developers Ross W. Cortese and Joseph Eichler; furniture and interior designers Paul Frankl, Paul László, Shirley Ritts of Ritts Co., and T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings; Robert D. Harrell, Texas-based interior designer; and Barbara Barondess MacLean, actress turned interior designer. The retail businesses that Parker counted among his more important clients included Barker Bros., Cannell & Chaffin, W. & J. Sloane, C. W. Stockwell Co., O. M. Scott & Sons, and Albert van Luit & Company. Print clients included Architectural Digest, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, the Los Angeles Times, and Sunset, among others. Parker also established relationships with contributors to these, and other, publications including writers Louise Price Bell, Martha B. Darbyshire, Frances Heard, Pauline Graves, Ethel McCall Head, Ellen Sheridan, and Fleeta Woodroffe. Many of the editors at House Beautiful also became close friends of Parker's. Foremost among these was Joseph Howland, garden editor; Virginia Stanton, party editor and wife of architect Robert Stanton; and Jean Murray Bangs, contributing editor and wife of Harwell Hamilton Harris.

Parker continued his work as a professional photographer into the late 1960s. He died in Los Angeles in 1976.

From the guide to the Maynard L. Parker negatives, photographs, and other material., 1930-1974, bulk 1940s-1960s, (The Huntington Library)