Charles Parkhurst talks about UMUC's Herman Maril art collection.

Art Expert Offers Gallery Talk on Maril Works at UMUC

By Andrea Martino

Renowned art historian, writer, teacher, and retired museum director Charles Parkhurst offered a gallery talk at UMUC February 17. His subject: "Reflections on Herman Maril," the Baltimore-born artist whose works are currently on display in two exhibits at the University's Inn and Conference Center.

Parkhurst was director of the Baltimore Museum of Art from 1962 to 1970 and assistant director and chief curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from 1971 to 1983, so he is no stranger to the Baltimore and Washington art worlds.

The Weirs, 1955. The Herman Maril Collection at UMUC.

"I'm not a painter," said Parkhurst to an audience of more than 50 admirers of Maril's work. "I'm an art historian. And I find his work extraordinarily lyrical. The language that Herman Maril invented is one of the most beautiful I've seen.

"Maril internalized his art, engaging in a social exchange of ideas with other artists," Parkhurst continued. "Yet, each Maril painting is an oasis of solitude, a kind of garden of paradise of your own."

During Parkhurst's service as director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the museum held a retrospective on Maril works and published a book about the artist in 1977, which included a foreword that Parkhurst wrote.

Herman Maril (1908–1986) was widely known for his seascapes, interiors, and landscapes. UMUC recently established a permanent Herman Maril Gallery in the Inn and Conference Center in Adelphi, Maryland. Some of Maril's works can be viewed online at www.umuc.edu/maril.