Glidden Parker Jr.
American, 1913 - 1980Bridge in Winter - Alfred, 1946
Not on view
Oil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 43 5/8 × 31 1/2 in. (110.8 × 80 cm)
36 × 24 in. (91.4 × 61 cm)
Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation, Inlander Collection, L2003.96
This painting is a depiction of a bridge outside the town of Alfred, in western New York.
Glidden McLelland Parker, Jr. was born in Phillips, Maine, in 1913. As a child he attended a one-room country schoolhouse. Parker attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he studied writing and received a B.A. degree in literature in 1935. After graduation, Parker traveled to Europe. Returning to Maine, he next traveled to Alfred, New York, where he became intensely interested in ceramics. Pursuing this interest, he entered Alfred University as a graduate student in ceramics. In the course of his studies, he took up painting under the tutelage of the American Cubist, Katherine Nelson. He had also established Glidden Pottery in Alfred. After graduation, Parker was offered a teaching job in Philadelphia but he declined in order to continue designing and marketing his successful line of ceramic ware.
Parker closed Glidden Pottery in 1957 and moved to Arizona. In 1962 Raymond Loewy hired him to teach pottery in his ceramic studio in Puerto Rico. A few years later, Parker left Puerto Rico to take a job as a stained-glass designer in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he remained into the mid-1970s. He then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to begin yet another career designing ceramic sculpture.
