Parker's artistic relationship with monkeys began when the Museum of Modern Art commissioned him to do a series of illustrations for author and modernist poet Marianne Moore's book "Eight Poems," published in 1962. 

 

"I spent a lot of time at the Los Angeles Zoo," he said, thanks to a grant by the Ford Foundation in 1967 that saw Parker produce dozens of lithographs. "I held hands with a spider monkey at the zoo. His hands were hot and sticky, just like a human's."

 

Later, Parker used stuffed monkeys as models in classes he taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.