Ludwig, Coy (L.) 1939-

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Ludwig, Coy (L.) 1939-

PERSONAL: Born 1939.

ADDRESSES: Home—406 Brookford Rd., Syracuse, NY 13224.

CAREER: State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, NY, assistant professor emeritus of art, cofounder of Gay and Lesbian Employees Association (GLEA). Director of Tyler Art Gallery; associated with Syracuse University. SAGE/Upstate; member of board of directors.

WRITINGS:

Maxfield Parrish, Watson-Guptill (New York, NY), 1973, new edition, Schiffer Publishing (Atglen, PA), 1993.

The Arts and Crafts Movement in New York State, 1890s-1920s, Gallery Association of New York State (Hamilton, NY), 1983.

The Art of Donald Reichert: A Memorial Exhibition, George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum (Springfield, MA), 1985.

SIDELIGHTS: Coy Ludwig, an associate professor of art who taught at the State University of New York at Oswego, is the author of Maxfield Parrish, a biography of the American painter and illustrator whose work graced the covers of Collier's, Harper's Weekly, and Life magazine, among others. Parrish, who helped shape the Golden Age of American illustration during the early twentieth century, was famous for his paintings of androgynous nudes in fantastical gardens, his use of overglazes to intensify colors, and for his trademark "Parrish blue," a dazzling shade that can be seen in the artist's many sunset landscapes.

In Maxfield Parrish Ludwig describes the artist's technique, examining in detail Parrish's methods of painting and his choice of materials. The study also includes excerpts from Parrish's correspondence with family and friends. The heavily illustrated work contains sixty-four color images as well as more than one hundred black-and-white reproductions. Linda Nochlin, writing in the New York Times Book Review, called Maxfield Parrish informative and well-organized, but also noted that Ludwig's "attempts to link Parrish's sentimental photo-idealism with today's New and Photo Realists seems far-fetched in the face of the works themselves." Ludwig's biography makes clear that Parrish's "sweet symmetry, jolly palette, coy eroticism, and technical expertise are not to be snobbishly dismissed," according to a critic in Time.