Howard Pyle, His Students & The Golden Age of American Illustration

Exhibition Website

May 26 2017 - Dec 31 2018

Howard Pyle, His Students & the Golden Age of American Illustration is a exhibition featuring oil paintings, works on paper, and accompanying artifacts that highlight the work of Howard Pyle, known as the “Father of American Illustration”, and the generation of celebrated illustrators he taught.

In 1894, Pyle founded the first School of Illustration in America at Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry, now Drexel University, shaping the way illustrators created artworks thereafter. Howard Pyle taught at the Drexel Institute until 1900 when he founded the Howard Pyle School of Illustration in Wilmington, Delaware. His students at both schools became known as “The Brandywine School,” which included some of America’s greatest illustrators.

Pyle’s innovative teaching methods encouraged his students to live their illustrations, therefore painting from experience, not merely from observation. “Today everyone knows the name Norman Rockwell but few people know the name Howard Pyle, let alone his art or his impact on generations of artists and American illustration,” says Judy Goffman Cutler, co-founder of the National Museum of American Illustration. “This exhibition will give viewers a first-hand and close-up look at the marvelous original paintings that most people have only seen in reproduction form.” 

To highlight the importance of Pyle’s teachings on all of America’s Golden Age illustrators, a selection of artworks from later periods will be on display, including Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker and Howard Chandler Christy.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

  • Various Media
  • American
  • Brandywine-School
  • Howard Pyle
  • Norman Rockwell
  • J.C. Leyendecker
  • Howard Chandler Christy
  • and others

Exhibition Venues & Dates