Date: Fri 12-Feb-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LIZAM

Quick Words:

Parrish-Windsor-Currier

Full Text:

Windsor Stops Bank's Sale Of Maxfield Parrish Painting

WINDSOR, VT. (AP) -- An original painting that artist Maxfield Parrish gave to

employees of a former bank has hung in the building's lobby for half a decade.

But on the morning of February 2, before bank hours, Vermont National Bank

arranged for The Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, N.H., to pick up the

painting and try to sell it.

When word spread in town about the transaction, residents complained to

Windsor Police Lt Vincent Jordan, who arrived at the bank and quietly put an

end to the deal.

By day's end, both the bank and the gallery had called off the sale.

In the 1950s, the world-famous artist and illustrator Maxfield Parrish gave

one of his paintings to "the girls" at Windsor County National Bank because

they helped him with his accounts for many years.

The painting, "New Hampshire," with Parrish's trademark lavender mountains and

electric "Parrish blue" skies, was the joy of Windsor and the pride of the

tellers at the bank, which eventually became Vermont National Bank.

"We've decided not to go forward and pursue the sale with the Currier

Gallery," said Robert Hain, vice president of marketing for Vermont National

Bank. "We've heeded their concerns and it will stay in Windsor and stay in the

branch," said Hain.

But former bank employees, as well as many Windsor residents, were furious

with their hometown bank.

"It's not theirs to sell," said Joyce Pierce of Windsor, one of "the girls" to

whom Parrish left the painting. Pierce and others found out about Vermont

National's plans for their painting shortly after a fax came into the Windsor

office February 1.

By 7 am the next day, they gave local police what they believed was proof the

painting was theirs, and not the bank's.

"In regards to the picture dad painted and originally titled `Summer in New

Hampshire,' which for many years hung in the lobby of the Windsor County

National Bank, in 1964 [we] specifically asked him what its status was. He

said it was a gift, not to the bank, but to the people that worked there, who

over the years helped him so cheerfully with his banking problems...," wrote

Maxfield Parrish Jr in 1967, to Gerald Cabot, the vice president of the

Windsor branch office.

"I believe it would not be proper to remove it without the unanimous approval

of the people it was given to, the employees of the bank," he concluded.

And in a more private letter to Cabot, Parrish practically predicted the

February 2 events.

"Said enclosed letter is a serious attempt to head off [the president of VNB]

swiping a rather rare and unique symbol of considerable statue symbolism of

the times, as well as some monetary value," wrote the artist's son.

Retired state Rep Wesley Hrydziusko (R-Windsor) was at the bank early too,

ready to threaten the bank with a lawsuit if the painting was moved.

Hrydziusko once worked at the old Windsor County National Bank and waited on

"Mr Parrish."

Hrydziusko was emphatic "the painting had to remain in Windsor and remain at

the bank."

Alma Gilbert of Cornish, a well-known Parrish expert who ran The Maxfield

Parrish Museum at his home The Oaks, in Plainfield, N.H., in the late 1970s,

said the painting was probably worth $295,000 to $300,000.