Today, a look at the work of Lewis Parker.
Parker had a tremendous gift for creating diverse work.
Just looking at these few examples from some early '60s issues of Maclean's magazine...
... it's hard to believe that they were all done by the same person.
In the '50s and '60s, Parker drew countless illustrations for MacLean's. Sometimes they were for full blown articles.
More often they were small spots for the magazine's news and reviews sections.
He often drew five or more small spots in a single issue of the magazine...
... and those spots were rarely all done in the same style.
Lewis Parker was born in 1926. At age 16, with three years of instruction at Central Technical School, he began his professional art career as a junior apprentice at a Toronto art studio called Rabjohn Illustrators. His pay: three dollars a week.
There he met - and learned from - many artists who went on to become successful in their own right. But of all those with whom he worked, Parker credits Bert Grassik, a Bert Grassick, a staff illustrator who also did political cartoons for Maclean's and the Toronto Telegram (and someone I previously wrote about on Today's Inspiration) as his single biggest influence.
Editorial cartooning was often in the mix of Parker's assignments - he did many for both Maclean's and the Toronto Star - and these examples demonstrate his obvious skill in that area of expertise.
You can read much more about Lewis Parker and see many more examples of his later painted artworks at lewisparker.ca
Matthew Parker also created a 30 minute retrospective of his father's art which you can find on youtube:
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