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On Assignment: American Illustration, 1850 - 1950

March 6 - January 2, 2011

The Delaware Art Museum presents On Assignment: American Illustration, 1850 - 1950, featuring over 50 paintings and drawings from the Museum's nationally recognized collection of original illustrations, on view through January 2, 2011. These works demonstrate the range of styles and subjects that characterized illustrations in American books and magazines from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.

Illustration differs from traditional painting in that it was work produced "on assignment," or at the request and to the specifications of a particular editor. The original illustration, usually a painting or sketch, was reproduced in abundance. While working to fill specific needs, illustrators nevertheless exhibited enormous originality in their ability to dramatize a scene and capture the imaginations of diverse readers.

For working illustrators, assignments were anything but predictable. From classical literature to frontier adventure stories, romantic tear-jerkers to children's fairy-tales, a good illustrator could do it all. The best were sought out by editors and admired by readers. (right: Howard Pyle (1853-1911), He lost his hold and fell, taking me with him,1909, from "The Grain Ship," by Morgan Robertson, in Harper's Monthly Magazine, March 1909,, Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 17 7/8 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 1912)

On Assignment offers illustrations from a variety of genres. Howard Pyle's painting He lost his hold and fell, taking me with him (1909) comes from "The Grain Ship," a thriller that appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine in March 1909. Bertha Corson Day, a student of Pyle, illustrated children's stories, and two of her works from Where the Wind Blows are included. Gayle Porter Hoskins, who continued to live in Wilmington after studying with Pyle, has several works in the exhibition, largely from western stories. Multiple western illustrations by Allen Tupper True are also featured. Other genres represented in the exhibition include humor, literature, fashion, sports, and silhouettes.

On Assignment: American Illustration, 1850 - 1950 was organized by the Delaware Art Museum. This exhibition is made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The conservation of the paintings by Allen Tupper True in this exhibition was made possible by a generous contribution from the Delaware Art Museum Council. Founded in 1967, the Museum Council is a volunteer organization that raises funds to help support Museum programs.

Wall text from the exhibition

As more people began reading for pleasure in the mid-1800s, illustrators were called upon to enliven the written word and help keep the audience growing. Lavishly illustrated books and periodicals became a staple of the American reading experience.

For working illustrators, assignments were anything but predictable. From classical literature to frontier adventure stories, romantic tear-jerkers to children's fairy-tales, a good illustrator could do it all. The best were sought out by editors and admired by readers.

Illustration differs from traditional painting in that it was work produced "on assignment" or at the request and to the specifications of a particular editor. The original illustration, usually a painting or sketch, was reproduced in abundance. While working to fill specific needs, illustrators nevertheless exhibited enormous originality in their ability to dramatize a scene and capture the imaginations of diverse readers.

The Delaware Art Museum's nationally recognized collection of original illustrations is the source of this exhibition, which provides an overview of American illustration from 1850 to 1950.

(above: Allen Tupper True (1881-1955), Pack Train on a Downhill Rocky Slope,1907, Oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Frank Eaton True, 2005)

(above: Percy van E. Ivory, (1883-1960), Untitled,1909, cover for Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1909, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 1976)

Wall quotes from the exhibition

The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out.

-- Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

Few people even know the true definition of the term "West"; and where is its location? Phantom-like it flies before us as we travel.

-- George Catlin, painter (1796-1872)

Art object labels from the exhibition

Untitled, 1927, from The Pied Piper of Hamlin, a Children's Story (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1927)

Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall (1861-1956)

 

Gouache and graphite on paper

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Kimmel, 1973

DAM 1973-120

 

In the Pied Piper legend, the 13th-century German town of Hamelin is beset by an infestation of rats. A man dressed in pied clothing promises to do away with the rats for a fee. His musical pipe then lures the rodents to their drowning in the river. Bonsall's vivid brushstroke suggests the frenetic scramble at the sound of the piper. Observant readers might find irony in the fascinated faces of the children, whom the Pied Piper -- in the original version of the legend -- later leads to a similar mass death.

 

The focus on the cat in this illustration recalls an earlier

Bonsall commission: in 1903, she illustrated Mabel

Humphrey's The Book of the Cat, described as "stories of kittens and cats who have a variety of exciting adventures."

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1929, from "Miss and Make-Up," by Betty Thornley, in Collier's, November 2, 1929

Harry Beckhoff (1901-1979)

 

Ink on illustration board

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Radebaugh, 1975

DAM 1975-65

 

Well known from the late 1930s through the 1950s, Beckhoff acknowledged the influence of the international Art Deco style -- elegant and functional -- on his illustration, which is often distinguished by strong lines and flat washes. The subject is trying to decide between two products in a year when -- according to Thornley's humorous article -- American women spent one billion, eight hundred and twenty-five dollars on "artificial aids to beauty."

 

 

 

 

Romantic Range, 1938

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Martha V. Keller, 2009

DAM 2009-73

 

While the publishing industry suffered setbacks during the Depression, the inexpensive fiction magazines called pulps prospered, and this was probably one of Hoskins's many scenes for such publications. While pulp illustrations often matched the lurid written contents, this one presents a more wholesome image. Frances McDermott was the model for Romantic Range. Conservation of the painting was made possible by funds contributed in memory of Margaret M. Eaton, the sister of Frances McDermott.

 

 

 

 

I implore you to exercise clemency toward my brother, 1912, from Peggy Owen and Liberty, by Lucy Foster (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing Co., 1912)

Henry Jarvis Peck (1880-1964)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1989

DAM 1989-2

 

Foster's four books about the young Quaker girl Peggy Owen during the American Revolution are still referred to as "girl series," tales that featured girls in starring and sometimes heroic roles.

 

 

 

 

I am in a room with three other girls-Miss

Philadelphia, Miss Cincinnati and Miss Beaumont. It

is a little crowded, 1928, from "Miss Brooklyn and Queens," by Edith Fitzgerald, in Saturday Evening Post, June 15, 1929

May Wilson Watkins Preston (1873-1949)

 

Charcoal and watercolor on bristol board

Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1987

DAM 1987-151

 

The reverse of this drawing for a humorous story about a woman whose mother, without her permission, entered her photo in a popular magazine's competition for the Most Beautiful Working Girl, shows a detailed sketch of the figure seated at the right, demonstrating Preston's careful working methods. Trained as a painter, Preston undertook illustration to support herself when her first husband died. She later married the artist James Preston; they were among the founders of the Society of Illustrators in New York, which remains a major professional organization today.

 

 

 

 

One glance at the card sent the blood in glad bounds to her very finger tips, 1912, from "The Secret," by Forrest Crissey, in Harper's Monthly Magazine, October 1912

John Alonzo Williams (1869-1951)

 

Graphite and watercolor on illustration board

Acquired through the bequest of Frieda Becher, 1975

DAM 1975-2

 

Williams studied with the painter John Twachtman and was a member of the National Academy of Design but worked consistently as an illustrator for newspapers, books, and magazines as well as a courtroom sketch artist. He was an award-winning watercolorist, and this illustration shows his facility with watercolor and ink washes to produce tonal values, something not always easily translated to the published page. Here, a girl opens an invitation to a birthday party.

 

 

 

 

"I'll go," she says-"an' fine an' glad I'll be to go," 1900, from "The Return," by Anne O'Hagan, in Mundsy's Magazine, April 1900

George Hand Wright (1872-1951)

 

Ink and Chinese white on illustration board

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Sataloff, 1979

DAM 1979-42

 

While O'Hagan's story does not specify the West as locale, rural life is the backdrop for this story of an immigrant couple's marital disagreement. Besides capturing the expressions and gestures of the contentious couple, Wright includes the details (the clock, the decorations on the mantel) that O'Hagan describes as signs that the couple's lives have improved since they arrived in the wilderness.

 

 

 

 

The blades rang together, c. 1924, from Captain Blood, by Raphael Sabatini (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,1924)

Clyde Osmer Deland (1872-1947)

 

Oil on canvas

Gayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 1990

DAM 1990-15

 

Sabatini's plot centers on Irish physician Peter Blood, who is accused of treason during a 17th-century uprising against the British crown, shipped off to the Caribbean, and sold as a slave. Blood eventually escapes and has no choice but to become a pirate. Deland shows him dispatching the French pirate Levasseur in a duel. After further adventures, Captain Blood is ultimately pardoned and rewarded. This scene was immortalized in the 1935 film Captain Blood, with Errol Flynn in title role and Basil Rathbone as Levasseur. DeLand learned from Howard Pyle to value historically accurate detail, and he became a specialist in historical subjects.

 

 

 

 

Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes, 1905, from Grimm's Fairy Tales (date and place of publication not known)

Margaretta S. Hinchman (1877-1955)

 

Gouache, silver paint, ink on paper

Gift of Constance La Boiteaux Drake, 1956

DAM 1956-14.1

 

In this fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm, Little

Two-Eyes' life is made unhapppy by her one- and three-eyed sisters, who cast her as the strange member of the family. Justice is served when Little Two-Eyes is magically presented with a silver tree with golden apples, and a handsome price arrives to marry her. In an ending consistent with 19th-century re-tellings, the conventional moral good must prevail, and so Little Two-Eyes forgivingly welcomes her sisters to her home after they have become poor and haggard. The silver paint, decorative capital and borders, and finely rendered image recall an illuminated manuscript of the Middle Ages, the period from which the Brothers Grimm collected their compendium of fairy tales.

 

 

 

 

Eileen Slipped the Ring in the Nest, 1904, from "The Charming of Estercel," by Grace Rhys, in Harper's

Monthly Magazine, June 1904

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Mrs. Maxine Waldron, 1981

DAM 1981-76

 

 

 

 

In between social activities, the foreigners found time for hasty expeditions to the best shops, from which they ordered on approval various expensive furs, gowns and jewelry, 1925, from "Seeing's Believing," by Maude Parker Child, in The Saturday Evening Post, January 9, 1926

Arthur William Brown (1881-1966)

 

Graphite and wash on illustration board

Acquisition Fund, 1993

1993-86

 

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, the teenage Arthur William

Brown worked as a news agent on a passenger steamer, spending much of his free time sketching passengers and sights. At the age of 15, he was hired as the Hamilton Spectator's political cartoonist. In 1901, Brown traveled to New York City to study at the Art Students League. His first break came with the commission to illustrate a Saturday Evening Post series of articles about a traveling circus. Brown always studied his assigned stories carefully, assembling models and photographs, and having the models act out the scene. "Often when they speak a line they will unconsciously make a gesture or perhaps a slight turn of the body, an accidental thing..., but it will be different and at the same time convincing," he said. In this scene, foreign visitors select some elegant clothes before their return home.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, not dated

Thure de Thulstrup (1848-1930)

 

Watercolor, gouache and oil on board

Gift of Donald J. Puglisi, 2006

DAM 2006-65

 

After a military career in his native Sweden and France, and training in topographical drawing as a civil engineer in Canada, de Thulstrup moved to Boston at the invitation of a lithographic company, where he drew atlas maps. He began sending illustrations to the New York Daily Graphic, was soon hired there, and moved to New York, beginning a long career in illustration.

 

While de Thulstrup became known mostly for his military illustration, his depiction of the Decoration Day ceremony at the grave of Adm. David Farragut in Woodlawn Cemetery in the New York Daily Graphic in 1875 established what would become another of his specialties, evident in this drawing-crowd scenes.

 

 

 

 

The Persian Columbus: Heading, c. 1928, from "The Persian Columbus," in The Pigtail of Ah Lee Ben Loo with Seventeen Other Laughable Tales and 200 Comical Silhouettes (New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928)

John Bennett (1865-1956)

 

Cut paper glued to board

Acquisition Fund, 2008

DAM 2008-1.1

 

When Bennett suffered several years of bad health during his childhood in Ohio, he mastered the art of cutting silhouettes. A high-school dropout, he worked as a freelance artist until he could afford to move to New York and study at the Art Students League. With his publication of Mr. Skylark in 1898, still considered one of the best children's books of the 19th century, Bennett's reputation was assured. During his affiliation with St. Nicholas, he was noted as a leading silhouette artist.

 

 

 

 

The Persian Columbus: The Minarers of the City, c. 1928, from "The Persian Columbus," in The Pigtail of Ah Lee Ben Loo with Seventeen other Laughable Tales and 200 Comical Silhouettes (New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1928)

John Bennett (1865-1956)

 

Cut paper glued to board

Acquisition Fund, 2008

DAM 2008-1.11

 

 

 

 

Why 'Tis Father, 1912, from Peggy Owen and Liberty, by Lucy Foster (Philadelphia: Penn Publishing Co., 1912)

Henry Jarvis Peck (1880-1964)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1989

DAM 1989-3

 

Henry Peck studied in Annisquam, Massachusetts, at the school run by artist and illustrator Eric Pape. Shortly after arriving in Wilmington for study at Pyle's studio, Peck wrote to his family:

 

I'm afraid Mr. Pape would not approve of Mr. Pyle's method of instructing without models... Mr. Pyle's idea seems to be to stimulate the imagination. That is the principal thing... Mr. Pyle comes in + criticizes, the students following him around from one student's work to another, so getting all the criticisms... If I can get hold of Mr. Pyle's teachings it ought to be a good thing for me... Very good grub. Living costs me about same as in Boston as I paid more for room + less for grub.

 

 

 

 

Woman in Pink Feather Hat (probably for

"Cosmopolitan"), 1940s

Barbara Schwinn Jordan (born 1907)

 

Watercolor and gouache on illustration board

Gift of Conrad Jordan, 1992

DAM 1992-80

 

Barbara Schwinn Jordan studied art and design in the United States and Europe and worked as both illustrator and portraitist. Throughout World War II on both sides of the Atlantic, women's hats with elaborate feathers and artificial flowers brightened the ordinary fashions brought about by rationing, especially as hat materials were among the few items not rationed. The artist recalled that she probably submitted this unpublished illustration to Cosmopolitan.

 

 

 

There are two kinds of love. One for the woman you respect, and the other for the woman you love, 1899, from Olga Nethersole, by Charles Allan Gilbert (New York: R. H. Russell, 1900)

Charles Allan Gilbert (1873-1929)

 

Gouache on illustration board

Acquisition Fund, 1991

DAM 1991-71

 

The 1893 opening of the play The Second Mrs.Tanqueray in London caused quite a scandal, as it dealt with a woman with a "past" who had married into society. When Olga Nethersole, a sultry English actress, created a sensation by playing Mrs. Tanqueray on the New York stage, Gilbert created a "fan" book about her. Gilbert was a camouflage artist during World War I as well as a pioneer in animation.

 

 

 

 

The Coming of Winter, 1888, from "The Coming of Winter," in Century Magazine, November 1888

Mary Hallock Foote (1847-1938)

 

Graphite and ink on paper

Acquisition Fund, 1991

DAM 1991-11

 

Foote lived the life that many illustrators of the West only imagined. A New England Quaker, she accompanied her mining engineer husband to postings in California, Colorado, and Idaho. Her 12 novels, four short story collections, many essays, and innumerable illustrations often presented a domestic side of the West, revealing the struggles and triumphs of women settlers. This drawing is one of 11 from Foote's series "Pictures of the Far West."

 

 

 

 

"Peter!" I cried again, trying not to choke up with the sudden sense of deprivation battering my heart to pieces, 1919, from "The Prarie Mother," by Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer, in Pictorial Review, July 1920

Arthur E. Becher (1877-1941)

 

Crayon on illustration board

Gift of the estate of Frieda Becher, 1971

DAM 1971-25

 

"Prairie Mother" is the story of a New England socialite married to a Scots-Canadian wheat farmer. She arrives on the Alberta prairie with plans for a happy family life but endures financial losses and personal trials that eventually end her marriage. Stringer's fiction explored the tension between a person of refined Eastern sensibility exposed to the harshness of Western prairie life. In this scene, a hired man to whom she has grown close has announced that he is leaving her household.

 

 

 

 

Miss Corner was reading a book. She looked very grave and pretty, 1916, from "Mr. Britling Sees It Through," by H. G. Wells, in Collier's Weekly, May 6, 1916

Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock (1868-1942)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1989

DAM 1989-54

 

Wells' novel -- a best-seller in 1916 -- appeared during his gradual disillusionment with the apparently endless course of World War I, an experience reflected in the title character Hugh Britling. This conversation, between a suavely handsome visiting American and his distant cousin, is observed by Mrs. Britling, who is suspicious of any young woman who reads so much.

 

Hitchcock painted in the academic tradition of the Paris academies where he studied. He was especially effective in illustrating stories about the social elite for Scribners, Harpers Monthly, and Woman's Home Companion.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1904 (place and date of publication unknown)

Harry A. Linnell (born 1873)

 

Pencil, ink, and watercolor on illustration board

Acquisition Fund, 1991

DAM 1991-9

 

Information about Harry A. Linnell is sparse. His work appeared consistently in both adult and children's magazines.

 

 

 

 

"Now, now, now!" said Augustine. "Now, now, now, now, now!," 1926, from "Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo," by P. G. Woodhouse, in Liberty Magazine, September 4, 1926

Wallace Morgan (1873-1940)

 

Crayon and ink wash on illustration board

Acquired by exchange, 1974

DAM 1974-38

 

Augustine is a meek curate in love with the vicar's daughter but is afraid to approach her father. When Augustine samples some Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo, a tonic designed -- he believes -- to embolden even the most timid person, he becomes so self-confident that he settles an argument between the bishop and the vicar, thereby winning the latter's permission to marry his daughter. It turns out that Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo was actually intended for elephants in India, as "too often elephants, on sighting the tiger, have turned and galloped home."

 

Morgan first achieved fame in the early 1900s, as the creator of the Fluffy Ruffles girl for the New York Herald, the first serial cartoon to appear in a Sunday magazine. Over his long career, he illustrated for leading magazine such as Life magazine and the New Yorker.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1909, cover for Harper's Weekly, September 9, 1909

Percy van E. Ivory (1883-1960)

 

Oil on canvas

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 1976

DAM 1976-81

 

Born in California, Ivory specialized in Western scenes. His picturesque imagery suited popular writing about the old West. The gentle romance of this cover, along with the woman's pristinely white blouse, are typical of the glamorized veil cast over what was an often violent and hardscrabble life.

 

 

 

 

Harold "Red" Muller, California's great passer, flipped a ball sixty-nine yards to a team-mate across Ohio's goal line, 1929, from "Hero Stuff," by John W. Heisman, in Collier's Weekly, November 2, 1929

Herbert Morton Stoops (1888-1948)

 

Ink, gouache, and graphite on artist's board

F. V. du Pont Acquisition Fund, 1986

DAM 1986-52

 

After his childhood in Utah and Idaho, Stoops studied art at Utah State College and then became an artist for San Francisco and Chicago newspapers. Much of his career was dedicated to illustrating for the Blue Book, a literary magazine. Stoops specialized in action pictures- especially western, military, and sports scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ONE LABEL]

 

[LEFT]

Tired passengers descended from a mail coach. Stagecoaches carrying passengers and mail jolted and swayed along the bumpy roads of the new republic, 1956, from Your Country's Story, by Margaret Mackey (New York: Ginn and Co., 1957; reprinted in 1961 ed.)

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

[RIGHT]

The customs officer of New York State told the farmer

Van Vorst that he must pay a duty on his eggs and chickens before he could sell them in New York, 1956, from same publication

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Both works: Gouache on illustration board

Gifts of Ginn and Co., 1972

DAM 1972-51 and 1972-52

 

These illustrations appeared in the Tiegs-Adams textbook series focused on history, geography, and citizenship.

 

Pyle taught his students to imagine themselves actually living in the time and situation they were picturing. To help to do this, they collected antiques and costumes to use as props and, when those were not available, photographs, drawings, and prints of period subjects. Hoskins doubtless combined several such sources in these illustrations.

 

 

 

 

Luyna Paris, c. 1925

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache on illustration board

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-1

 

The Luyna watercolors must have been studies for an advertisement for Luyna, a Parisian perfume company. The bottles in the background of the larger drawing allude to the perfume bottles.

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1925, cover for Junior Home, May 1925

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-3

 

 

 

 

Untitled, c. 1925, cover for Junior Home

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-5

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1926, cover for Child Life, April 1926

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-8

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1926, cover for Child Life

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-10

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1925, cover for Child Life, January 1926

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-13

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1925, cover for Child Life, December 1925

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-14

 

Little is known about Beatrice Anderson. She was born in Massachusetts, and she studied at Boston University and in Stockholm. A member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, the Weavers Guild of Boston, and the Massachusetts Society of Handmade Groups, she later moved to Seattle, where she exhibited textile works.

 

Her Child Life and Junior Home covers are typical of the simplified and colorful Art Deco design favored by these publications.

 

 

 

 

Study for Lunya Paris, c. 1925

Beatrice Anderson (dates of life unknown)

 

Watercolor and gouache

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 2007

DAM 2007-23

 

 

 

 

Untitled, not dated, from "Guleesh-na-guss-dhu," in Where the Wind Blows, by Katharine Pyle (New York: R. H. Russell, 1902)

Bertha Corson Day (1875-1968)

 

Ink and watercolor on board

Gift of Mrs. J. Marshall Cole, 1988

DAM 1988-177

 

The story of Guleesh-na-guss-dhu appeared in 19th-century compendia of Celtic lore. Guleesh "of the black feet" (so nicknamed as a youth because his father could not convince him to wash them) has many international adventures -- including transport from Ireland by fairy horses -- culminating in his marriage to a princess. Day's fluent and delicate illustrations gave the book, according to one critic, "a charm and character all its own."

 

 

 

 

Do you see this knife?, 1877, from "Papa Hoorn's Tulip," by R. V. C. Meyers, in Scribner's Monthly, January 1877

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

 

Ink on illustration board

Gift of Willard S. Morse, 1923

DAM 1923-92

 

"Papa Hoorn's Tulip" is a story with several silly plots involving a rare tulip. In the first silhouette, one character displays a knife with which she will obtain a tulip bulb, and in the second the family interrupts a hapless sailor who is eating the bulb, which he has mistaken for an onion. Pyle's silhouettes, which are drawn in ink rather than cut from paper, complement a tale suitable for both children and adults.

 

 

 

 

Monumental Entrance Gate Which Faces the Place de la Concorde, 1900, from "Some Picturesque Sides of the Exposition," by E. C. Peixotto, in Scribner's Magazine, May 1900

Ernest Clifford Peixotto (1869-1940)

 

Watercolor on illustration board

Gayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 1990

DAM 1990-29

 

After training with Howard Pyle, Peixotto studied in France and subsequently spent much of his career there, returning frequently to New York, where he was on the staff of Scriber's Magazine. International travel was more common by 1900 than it was in the 1870s when magazines began commissioning travel subjects, and illustrators were sent to report on events such as the Paris Exposition of 1900 (depicted here). Peixotto's renderings of buildings were so highly regarded that he was elected as an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects.

 

 

 

 

Take me in straight or I'll break your arm, 1911, from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Philadelphia: G. W. Jacobs, 1911)

Elenore Plaisted Abbott (1875-1935)

 

Ink and watercolor on paper

Louisa du Pont Copeland Memorial Fund, 1977

DAM 1977-327

 

 

 

 

It was just as she fell that Michael appeared at the door, gathered her in his arms and sped down the stairs, 1913, from Lo, Michael, by Grace L. H. Lutz (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1913)

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Gayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 1979

DAM 1979-33

 

Lutz's title comes from the Book of Daniel: "But, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me." The quotation refers to the poor young newsboy Michael, who grows up to be a model of manly virtue. Here he rescues the woman he secretly loves after she is abandoned at the altar by another man. One reviewer judged the book "a thrilling romance, full of adventure and spicy with the sweetest elements of young love and noble ambition, brought to happy fruition."

 

 

 

 

Facing each other at last, the girl white, shaking, her eyes aflame, 1909, from The Winning Chance, by Elizabeth Dejeans (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1909)

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Acquired by exchange, 1971

DAM 1971-4

 

Gayle Porter Hoskins' first job was as a political cartoonist for the Denver Post at the age of 14. After studying with Pyle, he became especially associated with scenes of the American West, although he illustrated a wide range of subjects. The dramatic gestures and facial expressions may reflect Hoskins' love of the theater; he founded the Wilmington Drama League in 1933.

 

One critic noted that Dejeanes' novel dealt with "the problem of the American girl," that is, how can a young woman succeed in the workplace without sacrificing her virtue at the hands of predatory male employers? The protagonist Grace must face her employer's sinister proposal "that there are other and more profitable terms by which she may continue in his service."

 

 

 

 

When I waked it was broad day, 1911, from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Philadelphia: G. W. Jacobs, 1911)

Elenore Plaisted Abbott (1875-1935)

 

Gouache and pencil on paper

Gift of Frank Schoonover, 1950

DAM 1950-9

 

Elenore Plaisted Abbott, a native of Maine, was a scenic designer and painter as well as an illustrator. She studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and in Paris, where her work was exhibited at the Academie des Beaux Arts. Upon her return in 1899, she studied with Howard Pyle. Her work appeared in many magazines and books, including classics such as Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

 

Abbott's range of textures and subtlety of color in the watercolor medium convey not just the plot but the mood of each incident. Above, the sinister Blind Pew threatens Jim Hawkins. Below, Jim Hawkins awakens, shipwrecked, on Treasure Island.

 

 

 

 

I suppose you don't want to be in business with me any longer?, 1913, from "Turnabout," by Margaret Deland, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1914

Elizabeth Shippen Green (1871-1954)

 

Charcoal on illustration board

Gift of Benjamin and Jane Eisenstat, 1983

DAM 1983-115

 

Deland began writing to gain income to support her charitable works. Many of her plots revolved around the fictional town of Chester, wherein she explored family, class, and social values. Here, an uncle is trying to ignore his nephew, who has caused a family rift. Green captures not just the uncle's pained expression but also sets forth the decorative elements suggesting the family's middle-class status.

 

 

 

 

The Sailor is saved, 1876, from "Papa Hoorn's Tulip," by R. V. C. Meyers, in Scribner's Monthly, January 1877

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

 

Ink on board

Gift of Willard S. Morse, 1923

DAM 1923-99

 

 

 

 

In between social activities, the foreigners found time for hasty expeditions to the best shops, from which they ordered on approval various expensive furs, gowns and jewelry, 1925, from "Seeing's Believing," by Maude Parker Child, in The Saturday Evening Post, January 9, 1926

Arthur William Brown (1881-1966)

 

Graphite and wash on illustration board

Acquisition Fund, 1993

DAM 1993-86

 

The teenaged Arthur William Brown worked as the political cartoonist on the Hamilton, Ohio, newspaper. After his move to New York City to study at the Art Students League, he began his long illustration career with commissions from the Saturday Evening Post. Brown always studied his assigned stories carefully, assembling models and photographs, and having them act out the scene: "Often when they speak a line they will unconsciously make a gesture or perhaps a slight turn of the body, an accidental thing..., but it will be different and at the same time convincing." In this scene, foreign visitors select some elegant clothes before their return home.

 

 

 

 

Franklin and His Volunteers at Three Crown Inn,

1941, for the 1942 DuPont Co. safety calendar

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Bequest of Alene Hoskins, 1978

DAM 1978-677

 

As the demand for illustration began to diminish during the Depression, magazines turned increasingly to photography for pictures. Hoskins in turn concentrated on publications that were not in decline, including calendar illustration. This calendar image promoting fire safety practices recalls Benjamin Franklin's insistence that Philadelphia look to Boston as a model of superior fire-fighting:

 

"Soon after it [a fire] is seen and cry'd out, the Place is crowded by active Men of different Ages, Professions and Titles who, as of one Mind and Rank, apply themselves with all Vigilance and Resolution, according to their Abilities, to the hard Work of conquering the increasing fire."

 

 

 

 

There was time enough for only a mighty heave and a

shove, 1915, from The Real Man, by Francis Lynde (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915, and Burt, 1917)

Arthur E. Becher (1877-1941)

 

Oil and ink on canvas

Gift of the estate of Frieda Becher, 1971

DAM 1971-57

 

Becher was born in Freiburg, Germany, and trained in Munich before his studies with Howard Pyle. Like so many illustrators of the period, he was also a painter, especially of landscapes. This novel's protagonist -- a fugitive from the effete and corrupt business world on the East coast -- proves his manly worth out West by heroically saving lives as a train bears down on a car.

 

 

 

 

"Very well," said the Rajah and picked up a parrot,

1926, from Fairy Tales from India, edited and illustrated by Katharine Pyle (J.B. Lippincott Company, 1926)

Katharine Pyle (1863-1938)

 

Oil on board

Lent from the Collection of Phyllis and Norman Aerenson

DAM L-2010-32

 

The youngest child of the Pyle family, Katharine was prolific as both author and illustrator. The luminous colors and graceful lines of the Rajah's figure and costume are typical of Pyle's style, especially in her many illustrations for children's literature. At the turn of the 20th century, many considered art an appropriate extension of women's "natural" talent for beautifying their surroundings, but there was still resistance to women as professional artists. The artist and illustrator Joseph Pennell offered Katharine Pyle as an example of why there was "no earthly reason why women should not be illustrators."

 

 

 

 

The Harbinger, 1910, from "On the Highway of the Sky," in Scribner's Magazine, March 1911

William Harnden Foster (ca. 1886-1941)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of the estate of Frieda Becher, 1981

DAM 1981-36

 

Foster joined Howard Pyle's school after studying at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Pyle suggested that Foster show his series of paintings of trains entitled "All in a Day's Run" to Scribner's Magazine's art editor, who quickly agreed to publish them along with a commentary by Foster. In 1910, Scribner's published Foster's paintings -- including this one -- of what were then called "aeroplanes." Foster shows the nautical spectators observing this new form of transportation with curiosity.

 

 

 

 

The crown prince, standing alone, so small, so appealing, against his magnificent background, was a picture to touch the hardest, 1917, from "Long Live the King," by Mary Roberts Rinehart, in Everybody's Magazine, June 1917

Arthur E. Becher (1877-1941)

 

Crayon and watercolor on illustration board

Gift of the estate of Frieda Becher, 1971

DAM 1971-41

 

Mary Roberts Rinehart began to write in 1903 in order to supplement her nurse's salary in Pittsburgh. She published 45 stories in her first year, and wrote steadily in a range of genres until shortly before her death in 1958. The startling plot twists of her mystery stories won her the title the American Agatha Christie. "Long Live the King" tells of a royal child who longs to be merely normal, and the unpredictable events that follow.

 

Becher came with his parents from Germany to Milwaukee, where he worked as a commercial lithographer before moving to Wilmington to study with Pyle. Within a few years, Appleton's, a general literature magazine, sent him to London, and he took the opportunity for further study in Munich. Becher was a highly versatile illustrator, excelling both in color harmony and in the mixed media seen here.

 

 

 

 

Drawing for Tony Washington, 1856, composition in outline from Margaret, by Sylvester Judd (J. S. Redfield Co., 1856)

Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888)

 

Pencil, plate XXII

Gift of Mrs. Douglas Davidson, 1938

DAM 1938-45

 

F. O. C. Darley was self-taught as an artist and illustrator.

Tony Washington is a barber and violinist in Judd's historical fiction about New England.

 

 

 

 

Frontispiece, not dated, from Where the Wind Blows, by Katharine Pyle (New York: R. H. Russell, 1902)

Bertha Corson Day (1875-1968)

 

Ink and watercolor on paper

Gift of Mrs. J. Marshall Cole, 1988

DAM 1988-182

 

A Pyle student, Day had early success when her decorative designs were published in the "little magazine" Chap-Book in 1896 and 1897, and her design for a poster advertisement for Cashmere Bouquet products won second prize in a contest in 1897. In 1902, Day and Katharine Pyle collaborated on Where the Wind Blows, a book of fairy tales from around the world. The frontispiece, in Day's characteristic vivid colors surrounded by dark tracery, illustrates Katharine Pyle's own addition to the collection of stories, described by a reviewer as:

 

"The pretty little phantasy of the Wind, who tells the stories to his old grandmother when he comes back home after his day's work of scouring the world and recounts all that he has seen and heard."

 

After Day's marriage in 1902 to Daniel Moore Bates, she did very little commercial illustration.

 

 

 

 

 

"It's beautiful here tonight," she thought. "But, heavens, what a lot I've had to go through with to be able to recognize it," 1923, from "Making a Man of Him," by Bernice Brown, in Ladies Home Journal, October 1923

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Bequest of Alene Hoskins, 1978

DAM 1978-676

 

In a reversal of the common theme of heading West for adventure, this story portrays Aida Sparks, who sacrifices all she has, including a gold watch, for the man she loves, so that he can escape the harsh Minnesota prairie and travel East. Here she recognizes the beauty of the expansive plains while recalling the bleakness of her life.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the faithful "bronc" grows cantankerous,

1907, from "The Mountain Pony," by Allen Tupper True, in Outing Magazine, May 1908

Allen Tupper True (1881-1955)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Frank Eaton True, 2005

DAM 2005-9

 

In the illustrations for his own story, True explored some of his recurring themes, especially the beauty of his native Colorado landscape and the indispensible horses who made its settlement possible.

 

 

 

 

Pack Train on a Downhill Rocky Slope, 1907

Allen Tupper True (1881-1955)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Frank Eaton True, 2005

DAM 2005-10

 

 

 

 

The Orphan, 1907, from The Orphan, by Clarence E. Mulford (New York: The Outing Publishing Company, 1908)

Allen Tupper True (1881-1955)

 

Oil on canvas

Gift of Frank Eaton True, 2005

DAM 2005-11

 

Clarence Mulford, the author of numerous Western tales, was known primarily as the creator of the character Hopalong Cassidy. In The Orphan, a man searches for the villains who murdered his parents and becomes something of an outlaw himself while managing to say one step ahead of the law. Romantic adventures ensue when he falls in love with a sheriff's daughter.

 

 

 

 

He lost his hold and fell, taking me with him, 1909, from "The Grain Ship, by Morgan Robertson, in Harper's Monthly Magazine, March 1909

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

 

Oil on canvas

Museum Purchase, 1912

DAM 1912-48

 

Robertson's story is one of horror at sea. All hands but one have been infected by rabid rats and have thrown themselves overboard. Only one remains uninfected, and he is determined to save himself from the last crazed seaman. They struggle frantically over the Bay of Biscay, where the narrator finally falls to the sea, and is later rescued.

 

 

 

 

Janet turned her back and walked off and the men laboriously followed, 1926, from "The Gathering Storm," by Margaret Lynn, in Youth's Companion, December 23, 1926

Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962)

 

Oil on canvas

Gayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 1979

DAM 1979-35

 

Out on the Kansas plains, this woman is leading her horse Pronto when men in a covered wagon mockingly accuse her of horse thievery. Not intimidated, she offers them food and shelter if they follow her home. The men, impressed by her bravery, "ceased to be amused" and accept her hospitality.

 

 

 

 

[Untitled Label]

 

The conservation of the paintings by Allen Tupper True in this exhibition was made possible by a generous contribution from the Delaware Art Museum Council. Founded in 1967, the Museum Council is a volunteer organization that raises funds to help support Museum programs.

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