

In Memoriam: Ellwood (Lee) Parry III By University Communications October 11, 2005
Art Professor Ellwood Comly (Lee) Parry III died Sept. 11, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 64.
Parry began teaching at the UA in 1981. He was born in Abington, Penn., where the Parry family had long been active in the Abington Friends Quaker Meeting. He grew up in nearby Jenkintown and Dresher and attended Meadowbrook School and William Penn Charter High School. Parry spent part of one high school year as an exchange student in the French region of Alsace that may have helped foster his later appreciation of French art.
Parry graduated with a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, a master's from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate in art history from Yale University. Always a romantic at heart, he began as an English major who loved the Romantic poets and only discovered art history as a senior at Harvard. Parry specialized in the study of 19th-century landscape painting, particularly the art of the Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. He wrote two books, "The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art, 1590-1900" (1974) and "The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination" (1988), as well as scholarly articles and essays.
Parry taught art history at Columbia University (1969-1975) and the University of Iowa (1976-1981) before joining the UA. He also taught classes in the Humanities Seminars program and was interim director of the Tucson Museum of Art in 1987 while on sabbatical from the UA. Parry served on numerous boards and committees including the board of trustees and advisory board of the Tucson Museum of Art, The University of Arizona Public Art Advisory Committee and the editorial board of the American Art Journal.
Early in his career, Parry faced a choice between continuing as a college professor or becoming a museum professional. It was a difficult choice because he delighted in working with actual works of art, but in the end his passion for teaching won out. Parry loved teaching in any setting, but he especially enjoyed lecturing to large audiences of undergraduates or the general public and sharing his love of art with as many people as possible.
Parry's other great love was for gardening and landscape design. His father and grandfather both kept large truck gardens. He had a balcony full of houseplants in New York City, a vegetable garden that kept the freezer stocked all winter in Iowa and developed a prolific cactus specimen garden in Tucson.
Student evaluations described Parry's teaching style as "enthusiastic," a word that summed up his entire approach to life, including his love of art and teaching, his passion for gardening and his devotion to family, friends and colleagues.
Lee was preceded in death by his parents, Ellwood C. Parry Jr., and Elizabeth Graham Parry, and by his younger sister, Deborah Parry Clancy. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Pamela, and his children, Janna, Evan and Taylor, sister Carolyn Parry Decker, niece Elizabeth Decker and nephews Thomas and Edward Clancy and Douglas Decker.
A memorial service is schedules for Sunday, Oct. 16, at 2 p.m. in the Center for Creative Photography Auditorium.