A look back at women's magazines.

• Position: USA Yesterday - Al Parker's photograph collections

FOR A TIME, that age-old question, "What do women want?" was answered by illustrator AI Parker and his contemporaries who worked for America's leading women's magazines during the mid 20th century. Parker's masterful images often focused on attractive love interests and happy stay-at-home rooms who--in the optimism of a post-World War II nation--appear delighted by the modern novelties of suburban family life. From mothers and daughters pursuing recreational activities, such as skiing and swimming together, to more domestic pursuits, like baking in matching outfits, to his images of glamorous seductresses and betrayed heroines, Parker created idealized portrayals of women in pictures that profoundly have influenced our cultural conception of what it means to be beautiful.

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Known as "The Dean of Illustrators," Parker (1906-85) was a celebrity in his time and counted Norman Rockwell among his many admirers. His name virtually is unknown today, yet his influence on American post-war culture and society had a far-reaching effect, as his illustrations defined and shaped the dreams and desires of a nation on the rebound.

"Al Parker emerged in the 1930s to establish a vibrant visual vocabulary for a new suburban life so desired in the aftermath of the Depression and World War II," says Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, curator of an exhibition that pays tribute to the illustrator's prolific oeuvre and to the period in which he lived. "More graphic and less detailed than the paintings of the luminary Norman Rockwell, who was a contemporary and an inspiration to him, Parker's stylish compositions were sought after by editors and art directors for their contemporary look and feel."

"... Al Parker [was] an influential artist in shaping post-war American culture through published visual imagery. His stylized vision of American women both reflected and helped to create the feminine 'ideal' in the decades that preceded the women's movement. His art is beautiful and arresting," comments Laurie Norton Moffatt, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum. "Both Norman Rockwell and AI Parker painted idealized scenes of post-war domesticity that have seeped into our subconscious and shaped our image of the American ideal."

Parker's illustrations were ever evolving, keeping him one step ahead of his many imitators. One of his greatest skills was to change his style, thematic approach, and media constantly. Making magazine history, he created...