New on OAC and Calisphere: Architectural Photographer Maynard L. Parker

By Sherri Berger, Program Coordinator for Digital Special Collections

A guide to the papers of noted Los Angeles-based architectural photographer Maynard L. Parker (1901-1976) is now online.  Parker is known for his images of midcentury modern homes and gardens on the West Coast and across the nation.  His work captures a postwar era of suburban middle class homes that were designed for indoor-outdoor living, featured innovative and new building materials and appliances, and reflected a burgeoning consumer culture.  From the late 1930s to the early 1970s, his images were featured in many of the nation’s top shelter magazines, including House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, and Better Homes & Gardens.

Browse the collection guide on OAC to learn about 58,000 negatives, transparencies, and photographs, as well as office records and business correspondence, held at The Huntington Library.  The papers relate to a wide range of American architects, publishers, and designers of the postwar era.

Also online are almost 6,000 images of interiors and exteriors photographed by Parker, many of which appeared in popular magazines.  Thirty photographs comprise a new Calisphere themed collection, “California and the Postwar Suburban Home,” that sheds light on the aesthetic and personal values of many Americans in the two decades following World War II.

Learn more about Parker, the collection, and related resources at The Huntington Library’s Maynard Parker collection (http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=3970) webpage.