1054 31st STREET, NW       WASHINGTON, D.C. 20007

Making a Difference: Norman Parish, Artist and Cultural Worker
 By Floyd Coleman

Seeking to help bring art to the people, Norman Parish worked with Jeff R. Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Sylvia Abernathy, Barbara Jones and others to paint the initial Wall of Respect at 43rd and Langley in Chicago in 1967.  Twenty-four years later, in 1991, his desire to bring art to the people was still very much alive when he established Parish Gallery in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC.  Regarding the gallery, Parish says: “I am basically doing the same thing we were doing in the 1960s, trying to provide an awareness of what Black people are all about—their hopes and aspirations revealed through the language of art.”

Parish recalls that he, Jarrell and other Black artists participated in many of the art fairs held each year in Chicago.  The other venue for showing their works was limited to the annual exhibition of Chicago-area Black artists held at the Museum of Science and Industry during Black History month.  Called “Black Aesthetics,” the exhibition was a means of appeasing Black artists.  The lack of opportunities to be featured in a solo show at a commercial or university gallery was an acute problem for Black artists in the 1960s and 1970s.  Over the past two decades, opportunities for Black artists to show their work have increased exponentially, but problems still exist.  Over the past nine years, Parish has worked tirelessly on behalf of the artists he represents, making his gallery on o the important venues in Washington, DC., and, indeed, on the entire East Coast.  He promotes the artists in his stable via the Internet, announcements in newspapers, art journals, extensive mailings, word of mouth and other means available to reach potential clients and the African-American public in general.

He has presented the works of such outstanding artists as Lois Mailou Jones, John Scott, Samella Lewis and E.J. Montgomery in both solo and group shows.  In addition, he has presented multicultural exhibitions; the works of artists of color from Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania; and the works of women of all ethnicities.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 26, 1937, Parish spent the first six years of his life there.  The Parish family, like thousands of other Black families, migrated north to Chicago in the early 1940s.  Parish attended the all-Black Wendell Phillips High School.  One of his teachers, Geraldine McCullough (now an internationally renown sculptor), helped him to improve his academic skills and gain a better understanding of art and contemporary culture.  In 1956, Parish graduated from Hyde Park High School, armed with a strong portfolio that gained him admission to the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he had attended after-school classes since the eighth grade.

In 1960, he graduated fro the Art Institute with a concentration in painting.  Over the years he has worked primarily in oils, exploring a wide range of subject matter—from representational images of Black heroes and everyday scenes to semiabstract landscapes.  Parish says of his work: “I find excitement in the use of highly refined color harmonies.  Angularity developed around or within the subject matter is intended to add 2-dimensional depth to the picture plane…”  His signature treatment of color harmonies and space can be seen in his landscapes, especially those of the 1980s and 1990s.  Frostburg (1989), a panoramic view of a section of western Maryland, is an excellent example of such treatment.  Although the landscapes can be seen as metaphorical allusions to music, his paintings of musicians provide connections to concern for musical expression.  Parish says: “Music, especially jazz, has been a constant interest in my life.  I… once thought of becoming a saxophonist, but instead I picked up a paintbrush and began to create the rhythms of music visually.”

The Last Pass (1996), a large triptych (a three-panel painting), represents Parish’s supreme effort to affirm an aspect of African diasporic culture.  The intent of The Last Pass (featured in Seeing Jazz, the widely acclaimed Smithsonian traveling exhibition), Parish says, “was to give the viewer the feeling of entering the neighborhood street, joining the procession, hearing the sounds and experiencing the movement.”  Describing the painting further, he says: “The musicians with their instruments are playing joyous sounds as the community joins in the celebration of a life, and, in the foreground, bold blocks of colorful brush strokes syncopate the rhythm of the music.”

He shows another dimension of his creativity through work produced as a professional designer and computer graphic artist.  Having studied drafting while still in high school, he landed a position as a draftsman when he left art school to seek employment.  “From the drafting job,” Parish says, “I learned a little about engineering, enough to make me a designer.  As a designer, I learned enough to become an assistant project leader and then to become a project leader, which led to the position of supervisor of computer-aided drafting, which automatically (opened) a whole avenue of opportunity.  I use the skill to this day.”  His skills in computer-aided drafting and engineering design enabled him to land a position in the Washington, DC area in 1998.  Soon, he started to paint again.  Often after his regular day job, he would spend evenings and weekends painting the wonderful open vistas of western Maryland.  Between 1988 and 1991, Parish produced a large body of work, principally landscapes, but no gallery in the Washington area would consider him for a solo exhibition.  Tired of being rejected he decided to open his own gallery.

He has maintained this well-designed and tastefully appointed gallery in Washington’s highly competitive art world.  Norman Parish has been a most important artist and cultural worker for several decades; his contributions to African-American art are only now beginning to be fully recognized.

Floyd Coleman is an art historian and professor in the Department of Art at Howard University in Washington, DC.

Parish Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, from noon to 6 pm; other hours by appointment.