Howard Pyle

(b Wilmington, DE 1853; d Florance, Italy, 1911) American Illustrator. Howard Pyle is often called the Father of American Illustration, not only because of his own wildly popular works but because so many of his students also went on to distinguish themselves in the genre. Notable among his pupils are Maxfield Parrish, NC Wyeth, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Harvey Dunn, Frank Schoonover, and many others. Pyle showed talent from an early age; in 1876 he moved to New York to further his studies and made his living submitting work for magazines like Collier’s, Century, Everybody's and Harper’s. He went on to illustrate children’s books, some of which he authored himself. He loved fairy-tales like Robin Hood and King Arthur, and he is particularly well known for his depictions of pirates. By the 1890’s he was well established as an illustrator and began teaching at the Drexel Institute of Arts and Sciences in Philadelphia, he also taught summer classes in Chad’s Ford Pennsylvania on the Brandywine River, thus his students are said to belong to the Brandywine School. In 1903 he formed his own school- the Howard Pyle School of Art, in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.