Along with the work of gifted painters, printmakers, and draftsmen, America's history of art includes millions of pictures that have filled the pages of the country's magazines, books, newspapers, and advertisements—a pictorial flood that has entered almost every home in the land. That vast gallery expresses the nation's life, its passing concerns, its permanient traits, its humor, its ambitions.
Once accepted as a matter of course, this art has become in retrospect a golden age of illustration, the most abundant and varied the world has seen. And its most potent shaping force was the gifted Howard Pyle—artist, writer, and teacher. Pyle arrived at the right time, instinctively recognized the power of pictures for everyone, and bent his outstanding graphic talent to that end. He also possessed a talent for writing that was successful with both children and adults, and, finally, he founded the Brandywine School and proved to be an inspiring teacher to a large company of giften men and women—such as N. C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Violet Oakley—who have left their mark upon the art of illustration.
A child at the time of the Civil War, Pyle's first illustration appeared in 1876 in the old Scribner's Magazine.From then until his death in 1911, he contributed stories, pictures, and cover designs to the leading periodicals in the country, including Harper's, Ladies Home Journal, McClure's, St. Nicholas, Collier's Weekly, and The Century Magazine. His books, now considered classics, remain in print and continue to fascinate both children and adults. Robin Hood, King Arthur and His Knights, The Champions of the Round Table, Pepper and Salt, and The Wonder Clock are among his best-loved books.
Today American illustration is being collected not only as an art but as a powerful voice in our social history. This beautifully illustrated biography of Howard Pyle makes a lasting contribution to such study.
—from the dust jacket
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