Simon Parkes

Simon Parkes (1954-2025) was a celebrated painting conservator and artist whose dual career placed him at the intersection of restoration expertise and contemporary painting practice. Working as a renowned restorer of paintings since 1971, Parkes spent more than half a century developing an intimate understanding of the great works of European and American painting, an experience that profoundly informed his own artistic sensibility. He headed the well-established Simon Parkes Art Conservation Co. in Manhattan, one of the most respected paintings restoration firms in New York, where his intimate knowledge of the technical and material history of Western painting served collectors, dealers, and institutions for decades.

Parkes divided his time between residences in New York City, East Hampton, and Swan's Island, Maine, and each of these locations shaped his artistic practice in distinctive ways. His long engagement with the coastal landscapes of both the East End of Long Island and the rugged shores of Maine provided him with an unusual range of natural subjects, while his New York studio anchored his practice within the vibrant contemporary art community of the city.

Parkes's career as a working painter developed alongside his conservation practice, and the two disciplines informed each other throughout his mature life. His decades of close examination of Old Master and modern paintings gave him an insider's understanding of technique, surface, glazing, and pigment that few contemporary painters could match. This deep material knowledge shaped his own painting practice from within, and his pictures rewarded the kind of extended looking that only an artist who had spent a lifetime studying the great traditions of European painting could produce.

Most recently, a group of Parkes's newest paintings was exhibited at W.M. Brady & Co. in Manhattan in 2016, presenting his work to a broader audience of contemporary collectors and confirming his standing as a serious artist in his own right alongside his celebrated conservation career.