Christmas Morn by Howard Pyle, 1903

A number of Howard Pyle's major works are surprisingly under-documented. For example, his painting "Christmas Morn" which was issued as a supplement to the Chicago Tribune for Sunday, December 20, 1903. Its appearance in the newspaper coincided with a major exhibition of Pyle's works at the Art Institute of Chicago, which, in turn, coincided with a couple of lectures Pyle delivered there. The original has yet to appear, but I assume it's a fairly large oil on canvas, which took a fair amount of time to paint. Somehow, though, I've found no mention of it in Pyle's (or anyone else's) correspondence. Then again, the same can be said of another major work - and another depiction of Christ, and practically a companion piece to "Christmas Morn" - called "Why Seek Ye the Living Among the Dead" which appeared in Collier's Weekly for April 15, 1905.

Howard Pyle’s Santa Claus, 1883

We don’t usually associate Howard Pyle with Santa Claus, but Harper’s Young People for December 18, 1883, features Pyle’s only known published images of the jolly old elf. These illustrated “Revolt of the Holidays” by Edward Irenæus Stevenson. Granted, Pyle’s Santa Claus is not as fully realized as the one imagined by his friend Thomas Nast, or by his student N. C. Wyeth, but beggars can’t be choosers. The Delaware Art Museum owns the original pen and ink drawings.

A Perfect Christmas, 1881

One of the remarkable things about Howard Pyle the craftsman - or, in this case, the draughtsman - was his skillful use of so many different drawing styles. For a long time I was mostly aware of his pen and ink work as seen in Robin Hood, Pepper and Salt, The Wonder Clock, Otto of the Silver Hand, and his Arthuriad (i.e. his books readily available from Dover Publications). They were “what Pyle’s drawings look like” to me. In digging deeper into Pyle’s work, however, I’ve come across things that have thrown off my preconceptions.

“Do you live with Santa Claus in his own house?” for “A Perfect Christmas” by William O. Stoddard, was published - solely - in Harper’s Young People for December 20, 1881. The composition is dominated by the cut tree, but the whole drawing - full of short, straight strokes - almost looks like it was made of pine needles. Pyle used this technique here and there from about 1880 to 1882, and drew this one around the same time as - though it barely resembles - his illustrations for Yankee Doodle and The Lady of Shalott.

December 17, 1906

A detail from "The Landing of Carteret" by Howard Pyle

After resigning from McClure's Magazine in the summer of 1906, Howard Pyle threw himself into work on “The Landing of Carteret”, his mural for the Essex County Court House in Newark, New Jersey. It had been commissioned by architect Cass Gilbert and was the largest thing Pyle had yet tackled - about six feet high and 16 feet wide - and it was supposed to be completed and installed by the end of the year.

On October 16, 1906, Pyle anxiously wrote to fellow muralist Edwin Howland Blashfield, “my work upon my picture has hardly advanced beyond the elementary stages.” But by December 1, he was able to report to Cass Gilbert, “I have laid everything else aside and have been working unremittingly upon it Sundays and holidays as well as other days. I now hope to have the painting completed, D.V., perhaps by the 15th and almost surely by the 20th of the month.”

On Sunday, December 16, Gilbert and his wife inspected the painting in Wilmington. Pyle was still at work, however, as on the following day he wrote the following letter to sculptor Thomas Shields Clarke:

1305 Franklin Street,
Wilmington, Delaware.

December 17th 1906

Dear Mr Clarke:—

I do not know how I can sufficiently thank you for the most interesting document with seals attached which you sent me.

It is exactly the kind of thing which interests me and you have guessed it as by intuition[.]

Not only is it valuable to me in itself but it came just at the opportune moment when I wanted precisely such a detail to put into my picture of the Landing of Carteret, which I am painting for the new Essex Co Court House.

Sometime, perhaps, you may see it in the picture.

With best wishes for the season and with heartiest regards I am—

Very Sincerely Yours

Howard Pyle

According to news reports, Pyle finished the mural on Christmas Eve, but for all the hurry it wasn’t set in place until March 9, 1907.

I first encountered the above letter in 1992 and had despaired of ever figuring out who “Mr Clarke” was, but I just learned that Thomas Shields Clarke also gave “seven old vellum documents, with very interesting seals” to his alma mater, Princeton University, according to the Princeton Alumni Weekly for May 26, 1909. Below is a scan of the original letter which features what Pyle called his “dreadful chirography.”

Pyle's Post-Publication Changes, Part 1

Illustrators, have you ever wanted to alter a picture after it was published? I know I have - too many times - but I've always stopped myself before going through with it. Howard Pyle never stopped himself, though, particularly when he had good reasons to change something. Historical accuracy was one.

Take "The Burial of Braddock" from Woodrow Wilson's George Washington. Here it is as it appeared in Harper's Monthly for March 1896 and in the book version published later that year.

Now, in reviewing the book, writer and historian Paul Leicester Ford criticized some of the details in the illustrations. Pyle heard about this in late April 1897, just when most of the original oil paintings were about to be purchased and presented to the Boston Public Library. No doubt chagrined, but "anxious to make them as accurate as possible," Pyle asked Ford for advice on how to correct them, "especially as my pictures are now, as it were, to go upon record."

In his review, Ford had said of the burial scene: "Common sense should have informed the artist that there was no time to get or make a coffin for Braddock, if the account had not specifically stated that he was wrapped in a standard." Apparently, Ford reiterated this point in his answer to Pyle.

"I had overlooked the fact that Braddock was wrapped in a standard," Pyle admitted, "but I disagree with you that the body would have been buried uncased or uncoffined." As Braddock had died at 10 p.m. and was buried at dawn, Pyle reasoned that "in the interim...some rude case would have been constructed to contain the remains. This is what I have tried to represent, and not a well constructed and well finished coffin." And while Pyle agreed that Braddock's uniform and boot-toes should be hidden by a flag, he told Ford, "I shall probably allow the roughly made box to remain, unless you, in your kindness, will suggest some further detail to indicate that I was in error."

Evidently, Ford indeed suggested that the "rough box" should be rougher still, for Pyle replaced it with one built from a broken up crate - as can be seen in the painting now "upon record" in Boston.

Assassination of William of Orange, 1900

In looking over the majority of my Howard Pyle posts, I see that I’ve been unconsciously featuring his “modern day” illustrations. Maybe it’s because I don’t think they’ve ever gotten their due. So, to placate those who want to see more of his “historical” work, here’s one that doesn’t get out too often.

It’s “Assassination of William of Orange” from The Rise of the Dutch Republic in the Volume Five (of 17!) of The Writings of John Lothrop Motley (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900). Pyle contributed only one illustration to the set, so it’s not the easiest picture to get a hold of, and, so far, I’ve only found only one place where he mentions it. In a February 25, 1907, letter to Merle Johnson, Pyle passingly refers to the Motley volume “for which I made one rather poor drawing.” I respectfully disagree!

The original (probably oil on board) has yet to surface, but the photogravure plate measures 4.9 x 3.3 inches.

December 13, 1909

A thank you letter from Howard Pyle to Thomas Casilear Cole (July 23, 1888 Staatsburgh, New York - March 1976 New York City), later a portrait painter and teacher, but then a sometime poet and student at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, residing at 205 West Newton Street, Boston.

A Child Sunburned in December 1881

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s nice, if rare, to put an exact creation date on a work by Howard Pyle. In so many cases, we only know the publication dates, but those can be misleading: a Pyle fable (also already mentioned) written in late 1876 took nine years to appear in print, as did his article “A Peculiar People” written in late 1880 and published in 1889. These are extreme cases, of course, but the crazed stickler for accuracy in me bristles even when I can’t pin down a date to within a few months. Pyle sometimes dated his pictures, but for the most part we have to rely on his patchy correspondence to figure out when he was working on what.

Now here’s piece of good fortune: it’s the actual bill (transcribed below) that Pyle sent along with a completed illustration to Emily Sartain, art editor for Our Continent, a short lived magazine published in Philadelphia. (A fascinating figure in her own right, Emily Sartain was an artist and an engraver, a friend of Mary Cassatt, and had once been romantically linked with Thomas Eakins.)

The $60.00 illustration was “A child sunburned, and with many fluttering shreds of raiment” for Helen Campbell’s “Under Green Apple Boughs” and it appeared in the very first issue of Our Continent for February 15, 1882. The 5.2 x 5.8" wood engraving was by Frederick Juengling. The original art has not yet materialized, but two of its companions have, so no doubt it was a black and white gouache, measuring somewhere in the range of 12.5 x 13.5" to 13.5 x 14.75".

**********

I have not heard from the engraver French as yet [Note: Frank French engraved the second, fourth, and sixth illustrations in this series]

Wilmington Del

Dec 9th 1881

Miss Sartain

I send first illus. for Under Green Apple Boughs

I hope and think it will prove satisfactory. I have put the best work I could upon it. Of course you will understand it is coarsely done for reduction to proper size. I hope you will find it follows the text.

Will go right on with the other drawings. Inclosed please find bill

In Haste Yours &c

Howard Pyle

**********

Dr

Our Continent Publishing Co

to Howard Pyle Cr

For one illustration for story Under Green Apple Boughs - sixty dollars

$60 00/100.

**********

The Suicide, 1905

I remember when I first saw this picture: I was about 14, in the basement of the Argosy Bookstore in Manhattan, desperately leafing through bound volumes of Harper’s Monthly Magazine in search of Pyles - and this one stopped me dead in my tracks. That gleaming sliver cutting through the curtains! It still makes me squint. And contrast that intense glow with the grayish pallor of the dead man’s flesh - the same tone as his shirt and the curiously placed globe lampshade. The butler's expression may be too exaggerated, but still this is one of Pyle’s most ingenious works in color.

“The Crown-Prince Karl, dead by his own hand” illustrated “Carlotta” by Justus Miles Forman in Harper’s Monthly for May 1905. Subsequently, Pyle exhibited the painting with the title “The Suicide,” but the subject was apparently off-putting to buyers and it remained unsold at the time of his death. The Delaware Art Museum now owns the original.

The Professor in His Boat, 1893

Look out, Thomas Eakins! Howard Pyle’s “The Professor in His Boat” - an 8 x 12" black and white oil painted in 1893 and printed (at a mere 2.9 x 4.5") in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1894). Amazing in so many ways - and needlessly neglected.

I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morning, when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing after me like those wounds of angels which Milton tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long rood behind me. To lie still over the Flats, where the waters are shallow, and see the crabs crawling and the sculpins gliding busily and silently beneath the boat...

Pyle Students at 1616 Rodney Street, 1906

Here is a photograph of Clifford Warren Ashley - wearing a smock - and Henry Jarvis Peck in their studio at 1616 Rodney Street, Wilmington, Delaware. The relative spareness of the space suggests that it was taken in the spring of 1906, soon after they had moved in (plus the painting on the easel is Peck’s “Swiftly He Put the Questions” for "=“Love in the Mist” by Clare Benedict, printed in Harper’s Monthly Magazine for October 1906 and illustrators generally needed to deliver finished art a few months before publication).

The other occupants of the newly erected building (now known as Schoonover Studios) were all “graduates” of the Howard Pyle School of Art: N. C. Wyeth, Arthur True, Harvey Dunn, Stanley Arthurs, and Frank Schoonover. Perhaps one of these men was the photographer.

Incidentally, on the wall behind Peck hangs a large print of Pyle’s “Lady Washington’s Arrival at Headquarters, Cambridge” (1896). A modern photo of the studio from a similar vantage point can be seen here.

A Pyle Student's Letter Home, Part 2

A transcription of Henry J. Peck's letter to his family:

Wilmington, Delaware, Dec. 8. 1901

Dear Father + Mother, Sister + Brother:

Now of course it’s up to me to tell you all about it so here goes.

In the first place you doubtless want to know my impressions of Mr. Pyle.

I had pictured him as rather short or medium height, and imagine my surprise when he loomed up before me 6 ft. and 2 in. His head is not unlike my mental picture; being innocent of all hair except some (gray) on the back + over the ears.

He has a very strong and kindly face, + is extremely cordial, informal + simple in manner, + treats his pupils in more of a fatherly way than anything else.

The accomp. sketch gives some what the idea of the studios but very imperfectly. The one in the rear on the right is Mr. Pyle’s + has been built 19 years. The other was built at a cost of $8,000 a year or two ago for his pupils + has 3 large studios with fire-places. They are furnished by the pupils with old chairs, desks, clocks etc and are very nice indeed.

The front studio is occupied by [Samuel M.] Palmer, [Philip R.] Goodwin, [Francis] Newton + [Walter] Whitehead.

The middle one by Becker [Arthur E. Becher] + [William J.] Aylward (of Milwaukee) [Ernest J.] Cross (California), [Clifford W.] Ashley, [Gordon M.] McCouch (“McCooch”) + myself.

The rear studio Miss Ethel Franklin Betts and Dorothy Warren (13) have all to themselves.

Frank Schoonover, Stanley Arthurs + [James E.] McBurney have a studio down town where they do their illustrating work. They have been under Mr. Pyle + he of course is still interested in them + they go to the studios for sketch class, comp. etc.

I never before saw a collection of so many nice fellows. Even McCouch, altho’ he is young + sometimes obstreporous is very good-natured.

It seems funny to have to draw casts and it seems strange to draw heads + figures from imagination. No model, except for Sat. sketch class.

Mr. Pyle’s idea seems to be to stimulate the imagination. That is the principal thing.

However it is a little early in the game to say much about it.

The Composition Class meets tomorrow evening.

We get up to the studio about 8 or 8.15.

Mr. Pyle comes in + criticizes, the students following him around from one student’s work to another, so getting all the criticisms.

He comes in again about 12. He gives the students about 3 hrs. a day I should say. He has one model whom he uses for about everything, + has used him about 20 yrs. His name is [John] Weller.

A good many of Mr. Pyle’s drawings are hanging around on the walls.

Friday evening by invitation Ashley + I went up to Mr. Pyle’s house on Broom St. Large house, old furniture.

Mrs. Pyle is very nice indeed. Rather small than otherwise. Of little Pyles there are six. Miss Phebe, 14 and the oldest, Eleanor, Theodore, Howard, Wilfred + Godfrey. Miss Betts and Dorothy also live there. We had a very pleasant evening, popped corn, + looked at some old proofs of Mr. Pyle’s drawings.

Ashley + I occupy the top floor at 907 Adams St. My room tho’ rather small is all right. $6.00 per mo. Most of the fellows eat at Mrs. [Anna] Pyle’s (no relation to Howard) across the St. at 906. $4.00 week.

Very good grub. Living costs me about same as in Boston as I paid more for room + less for grub. Its good grub here + regular hours of course. A solemn colored boy named [James? Jonas?] waits upon us. There are 10 fellows at the table, all Mr. Pyle’s pupils but one.

I’m afraid Mr. [Eric] Pape would not approve of Mr. Pyle’s method of instructing without models. As I know how to draw comparatively well, if I can get hold of Mr. Pyle’s teachings it ought to be a good thing for me.

Wilmington I like very well indeed. It is an old town, built of brick with brick paved streets, which seem quite home-like. About 60000 people, 20000 of whom are colored so I hear. It is slightly hilly in parts + altogether has an air of an old southern town which is very pleasant to me.

I went to service at Trinity Church this morning, 2 blocks from here. A commodious stone church. Vested choir. Good sized congregation. Rev. Mr. Henry. He came running down + greeted me before I had been there a minute, took my address, + asked me to come right along to services. Also when I was going out a Warden called me by name + shook hands with me with pleasant remarks.

I understand there are 8 or 9 other Episcopal churches here.

It was rough on the Sound Tuesday night. The boat rolled + rolled, + groaned and creaked like anything. I had a state-room. In New York I visited with Keen + Harry Cole awhile. The latter is connected with a law office in the highest building in N.Y. or in the world I suppose (of its kind). We went up 26 stories to admire the view. [Peck may have been referring to the Park Row Building]

At the Household I learned that a check had been sent to Boston for me the night before.

I received it 2 days ago. I thought it was for the full am’t. imagine my disappointment when it proved to be $19.00 only. Glad to get that much though. I suppose I’ll get the rest some time. Also got a bill for taxes from Boston. I suppose I won’t have to do anything about that will I now that I do not live there any more.

I had to pay $5.00 for studio rent for Oct. and Nov. and will have to pay $5 a mo. from now on.

Has business begun to be rushing yet. I was in a crockery store last night and it made me think of old times.

How is Margaret progressing at school. Marion Bowen told me that Marg. played Basket Ball.

I had another letter from Grandma a couple of weeks ago.

Give my love to Lucie. How is she?

Good-bye

Henry

A Pyle Student’s Letter Home, Part 1

In early December 1901, a young artist named Henry Jarvis Peck arrived in Wilmington to study illustration under Howard Pyle.

Peck was born June 10, 1880, in Galesburg, Illinois, and grew up in Warren, Rhode Island. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and then the Eric Pape School of Art in Boston, where his classmates included Clifford W. Ashley, a cousin, who had also just joined Pyle's class; N. C. Wyeth, who came down the following fall; and Sidney Marsh Chase, who became a Pyle student in 1903 [actually, I’m not sure when!].

On Sunday, December 8, 1901, Peck wrote his first letter home and I am happy to be able to display it here. A complete transcription will follow in a new post.

December 8, 1894

"True value of illustrative work is originality - Do what you see, not what another man sees - Don’t be schooly"

Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute, December 8, 1894 (as recorded by Bertha Corson Day)

On This Day in Howard Pyle History?

On December 7, 1900, Howard Pyle had a special guest at his studio on Franklin Street in Wilmington, Delaware. Yes, none other than Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University...Woodrow Wilson!

Well, maybe.

At this time, the two were corresponding regularly about Pyle’s illustrations for Wilson’s “Colonies and Nation” which appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine throughout 1901.

On December 1, 1900, Wilson wrote to Pyle:

I find (have only just now found for certain) that the date fixed for my lecture before the New Century Club in Wilmington is December sixth, next Thursday. I am to stay at Mr. Job Jackson’s [at 1101 Washington Street]. If you are to be at home the next morning, will you not let me know at what time I may call on you? A lecture rather does me up; but the next morning I will be fit to enjoy myself again.

Pyle replied on December 3, 1900:

Of course I shall be most delighted to see you, say at my studio the day after you lecture here in Wilmington. I am only sorry that we are not to have the pleasure of entertaining you. I shall probably see you the night of the lecture.

And then a few months later, on March 6, 1901, Pyle asked: “When do you come to Wilmington again? Do not forget that the next time you are to stay with me.” Wilson replied the next day: “Thank you very much for saying what you do about my staying with you the next time I come to Wilmington. The idea is most attractive. May the thing some day happen!”

So it’s still up in the air if Woodrow Wilson visited Howard Pyle on December 7, 1900, and I’m inclined to think Wilson never wound up being Pyle’s house guest once their collaboration was over. But if ever I obtain corroborating evidence, I’ll let you know.

The Fox, the Monkey, and the Pig

Howard Pyle most likely wrote and illustrated the following fable in November or December 1876 and it appeared in the September 1878 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls. The delay was not unusual for the magazine: another fable written at the same time wasn’t published until December 1885. Pyle's original 4.8 x 7.6" ink drawing, like so many others from this period, is at the Delaware Art Museum.

The Fox, the Monkey, and the Pig

The fox, the monkey, and the pig were once inseparable companions. As they were nearly always together, the fox’s thefts so far reflected upon his innocent associates, that they were all three held to be wicked animals.

At length, the enemies of these three laid a snare, in a path they were known to use.

The first that came to the trap was the pig. He viewed it with contempt, and, to show his disdain of his enemies and his disregard for their snare, he tried to walk through it with a lofty tread. He found he had undervalued it, however, when, in spite of his struggles, he was caught.

The next that came was the monkey. He inspected the trap carefully; then, priding himself upon the skill and dexterity of his fingers, he tried to pick it to pieces. In a moment of carelessness, however, he became entangled, and soon met the same fate as the pig.

The last that came was the fox. He looked at the snare anxiously, from a distance, and, approaching cautiously, soon made himself thoroughly acquainted with its size and power. Then he cried, “Thus do I defeat the machinations of my enemies!” - and, avoiding the trap altogether, by leaping completely over it, he went on his way rejoicing.

Bliss on November 28, 1876

It’s nice - and all too rare - to put an exact creation date on a Howard Pyle illustration. On November 28, 1876, Pyle, then living in New York, wrote to his mother, back home in Wilmington: “I was at work today making some comic Illustrations, as I want to make some money between now and Christmas. The first was called ‘Bliss’; it represents a diminutive gamin with his head buried under the sunbonnet of as diminutive a little girl.” The drawing appeared in the Bric-a-Brac section of Scribner's Monthly for May 1877. The Delaware Art Museum owns the original 5.5 x 5.9" ink drawing.

December 4, 1903

“...In discussing ‘American Art’ at the Art Institute yesterday afternoon Howard Pyle, the illustrator, urged American artists to be American and to give full sway to their creative powers. Thought and imagination, as against technique, were emphasized. Western artists were praised for their spirit and enthusiasm, but Mr. Pyle said that he did not think they produced the best there is in them. He hinted that this was due to the way in which the Art Institute is directing their work....”

Chicago Record-Herald, December 4, 1903

Robert Louis Stevenson's Howard Pyle Scheme

It’s a shame that Howard Pyle never got the chance to fully illustrate a Robert Louis Stevenson tale; they were - at least subjectively - kindred spirits. In the 1880s they pretty much co-defined the popular conception of what pirates looked like and sounded like and said and did. I don't yet know if they ever met, but they had mutual friends and acquaintances and admired each other's work. There’s an 1887 letter from Stevenson (then living at Saranac Lake) to Charles Scribner, his American publisher, in which he expressed a wish that, sadly, went unrealized. He wrote:

I have always forgotten to make to you my great proposal. I want you to set Howard Pyle to work on Marryat’s Phantom Ship: he will never get so good a subject; and if you and he will do your part, I will do mine and write a preface.

Edition de luxe.

Howard Pyle’s

The Phantom Ship

by Marryat

Preface by R. L. Stevenson

Charles Scribner’s Sons.

New York.

This is pure gold.

R.L.S.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Pyle

Robert Louis Stevenson died 115 years ago today, so here is Howard Pyle’s sole illustration for Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Even though quite a few of Pyle’s pictures are set in “modern” times (i.e. circa 1865-1911), they tend to be eclipsed by his historical and fantasy work. But this one has all the earmarks of his best and better-known pieces: a riveting, yet dynamic composition; fine detail (where needed) that gives way to looser, more evocative brushwork; great chiaroscuro, tension, drama; and it leaves plenty to the imagination while perfectly complementing the passage it illustrates:

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change - he seemed to swell - his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter - and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.

“O God!” I screamed, and “O God!” again and again; for there before my eyes - pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death - there stood Henry Jekyll!

It reminds me (in a twisted way) of Vermeer’s “The Artist in His Studio” - the heavy drapery at one side, the framed picture (as opposed to a map) on the back wall, the placement and lighting of the cluttered table, the almost photographic “presence” (for want of a better expression) - though Pyle’s is more of a snapshot whereas Vermeer’s is a large format studio portrait.

It was published in Volume Seven of The Novels and Tales of Robert Louis Stevenson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895). The reproduction is a tiny 2.9 x 4.1" and the original oil on board is 11 x 15.6" and can be seen at the Delaware Art Museum.

“A Study”

“A Study” in charcoal with white highlights on paper (19 x 31.5") by Howard Pyle was exhibited at the Second Exhibition of the Los Angeles Architectural Club, January 12-25, 1911. It was loaned by Scott Quintin of Los Angeles and a reproduction of it appeared in the catalogue. So far so good. But when did Pyle make it? 1900? 1910? Sometime in between? And how did Quintin get it? I just don't know.

In 1911, however, Scott Quintin (1884-1963) was an architect and from about 1907 on Howard Pyle grew more and more anxious to obtain mural commissions from architects. So did Pyle send it to the exhibition (via Quintin) as a way to drum up interest in his work? Or did he give it or sell it to Quintin, who exhibited it without Pyle's knowledge?

On the other hand, according to Who’s Who in the Pacific Southwest (Los Angeles: Times-Mirror Printing & Binding House, 1913), Scott Quintin studied free-hand and architectural drawing at the Drexel Institute between 1897 and 1904. So was “A Study” something a teenaged Quintin acquired during his Drexel days? Was it something Pyle drew in front of his class as part of a demonstration and then, say, left behind, only to be secreted home by Quintin (who, as far as I know, was not a Pyle student)? Or did Pyle simply give it to Quintin sometime between 1897 and 1900?

Well, at least we do know that the cavalier in “A Study” is wearing the same boots which turn up in dozens of Pyle’s pictures - the same boots which were “inherited” by his student Stanley Arthurs, then purchased by Betsy James Wyeth, then presented to her husband at Christmas 1950, then worn by Andrew Wyeth as he took recuperative rambles over the fields around Chadds Ford, and then featured by him (sans buckles) in his 1951 “self-portrait” called “Trodden Weed.”

I want those boots!

A Bit of Politics in the Olden Times, 1880

Howard Pyle’s “Politics in the Olden Times - General Jackson, President-elect, on His Way to Washington” (13.3 x 9.1") was engraved on wood by Smithwick & French and accompanied a short text titled “A Presidential Progress” in Harper’s Weekly for March 12, 1881. Pyle painted it in 1880 (apparently in April) and the scene takes place somewhere along the Old National Pike, which he had traversed from Frederick, Maryland, to West Virginia in 1879 with William Henry Rideing, an English-born journalist, in preparation for a long, illustrated article for Harper's Monthly. Now let me catch my breath...

Here is a small portion of the original painting (17 x 11.5") which will be sold tomorrow. The lot listing says it is “grisaille on paperboard” and I assume Pyle used gouache as it was his medium of choice at the time for what he exasperatingly called his “wash drawings.” I detect a distinct proto-Norman Rockwellian quality to this detail and to the picture as a whole, but it is typical of Pyle’s work for Harper's Weekly from the early 1880s.

The Chase of the Tide, 1901

When it comes to pictures, I am particularly fond of oblong compositions - especially oblong horizontal compositions. Is it from watching so many widescreen films? Is it something I’m genetically predisposed to, something I inherited from my father? It doesn’t matter. But here is an oblong Howard Pyle that has undeservedly slipped through the cracks - that is, unless you have the August 1901 issue of McClure’s Magazine handy. It’s an untitled illustration for “The Chase of the Tide” by Norman Duncan, and weighs in at a mere 5 x 1.7 inches. The printing isn’t great and the halftone (which shows the hand of an actual, human engraver, who has retouched the sky and bits of the boat) is murky, but the abstract wonderfulness of the picture shines through. As you see, words fail me.

Good for the Soul, 1898

Howard Pyle’s headpiece for “Good for the Soul” by Margaret Deland (part of her series of Old Chester Tales) printed in Harper’s Monthly for May 1898. As with his illustration for Jack Ballister’s Fortunes, I’m amazed at Pyle’s gift for effectively showing midday sun, in this case on the hills and dusty roads of Chester County, Pennsylvania - not far from where he started his summer school, just a few weeks after this piece was published. A lovely picture, in spite of the iffy halftone, and the original - in color! - is lovelier still.

Mark Twain on Howard Pyle

Today is Mark Twain's 174th birthday - enough of a reason to talk briefly about his (or Samuel L. Clemens's) connection to Howard Pyle.

Of course, the obvious link is that Pyle illustrated Mark Twain's "Saint Joan of Arc" for Harper's Monthly (December 1904). When the magazine initially approached Pyle about the project, they wrote: "It may interest you to know that in [Clemens's] letter accompanying the manuscript he speaks of you as the one man in this or any other country who can make pictures for it." And when Harper's informed Clemens that Pyle had agreed to illustrate the piece, he replied, "I am glad that an artist rich in feeling & imagination is to make the pictures."

But Clemens was already a longtime admirer of Howard Pyle, the artist and the author. Back in early 1884, while staying with the Clemens family, George Washington Cable had noted, "Mrs. Clemens is reading aloud to Mark & the children Howard Pyle's beautiful new version of Robin Hood. Mark enjoys it hugely...." And on New Year's Day in 1903 (shortly after Pyle attended Mark Twain’s 67th birthday party in New York), Clemens reiterated his opinion: "Long ago you made the best Robin Hood that was ever written," and in the same letter he praised Pyle's new version of the King Arthur legends: "They were never so finely told in prose before. And then the pictures - one can never tire of examining them & studying them."

So, by way of a birthday present, here is Pyle's "She believed that she had daily speech with angels" from "Saint Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain. A beautiful thing.

Lafayette’s Headquarters, 1898

I like to identify real-life objects or settings that Howard Pyle incorporated into his pictures: the boots that show up again and again in over 20 years’ worth of work (and that also appear in Andrew Wyeth’s “Trodden Weed”) or the strong box he bought in Jamaica that decorates some of his pirate paintings. As for settings, here’s an example...

In 1898, Pyle created a Summer School of Illustration (under the auspices of the Drexel Institute) in Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania. The Pyles set up house at Lafayette Hall, an old mansion across the road from Turner’s Mill, where Pyle and his 15 students had their studios. The male students boarded at Washington’s Headquarters, near the village, and, as Pyle said in a letter to E. L. Burlingame (now in the Archives of Charles Scribner’s Sons at Princeton University):

Close to me I have established the girls of the Class - nearly all of them living in a quaint little building which was Lafayette’s headquarters at the time of the Battle of Brandywine.... It is a beautiful little place perched upon the side of a hill, overlooking the stretch of valley to the airy hills beyond, and surrounded by old stone walls with a horse-block and with great buttonwood trees at the sides and sloping fields around.

Angel DeCora, one of the six female students, painted a view of the house, and below is a postcard which shows it a few years later.

As usual, besides teaching that summer, Pyle had illustrations to make, including several for “Old Captain,” a story by Myles Hemenway for the December 1898 Harper’s Monthly. And, as you can see below, Pyle used Lafayette’s Headquarters in his frontispiece titled “And you shall not hinder me,” preserving much of the porch, but transforming the distant Pennsylvania woods and fields into a small harbor town in the south of England.

Just One More Turkey, 1894

As it’s still Thanksgiving weekend, I figured I would post yet another Howard Pyle illustration featuring a turkey (be warned: there are more to come - but maybe next year). This one has rarely (or never) been reproduced outside its original context, namely Pyle’s Jack Ballister's Fortunes. “He picked up the bird and held it out at arm's length” first appeared in St. Nicholas for October 1894 and then a year later in the book version of the novel, published by The Century Company. In the magazine it measured 7.6 x 5 inches. Pyle painted the original in black and white oil on a piece of academy board of about 15.5 or 16 x 10 inches. I particularly like how he captured the effect of the glaring midday sun on the southern Virginia landscape.

Men of Iron Halftone, 1891

As a footnote to my post about Howard Pyle’s black and white oil painting for Men of Iron, I present the illustration as it appeared in Harper’s Young People for March 17, 1891. The 8 x 10.5" original has been reduced to 4.8 x 6.3" and it’s not the worst reproduction - especially for something mass-produced, ephemeral, and made so early in halftone’s history - but a grey mist has crept into the room and subtleties have been lost. Still, it’s good to remember that Pyle’s reputation was made, to a large degree, on mediocre reproductions like this.

Howard Pyle in Black and White, 1883

Although it’s always bittersweet when an original Howard Pyle comes up for sale (due to my pathological desire to possess anything he created coupled with my financial inability to do so), at least I get to see an often long-lost work in person, or, short of that, I get to see a high-resolution scan or photograph. The Men of Iron piece is a case in point as Heritage Auctions posted great shots of it (and five others) on their site when part of Charles Martignette’s collection was sold last July.

And here’s a link to another example that Christie’s auctioned in September. It is “Shays’s Mob in Possession of a Court-House,” painted by Howard Pyle (probably in the summer or early fall of 1883) for Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s “The Birth of a Nation” in Harper’s Monthly for January 1884.

Until it came on the market, this 8.5 x 14" oil on canvas had only been seen (except, I assume, by the owners’ inner circles) reduced to 4.8 x 6.4" and as the wood-engraver Arthur Hayman had re-interpreted it. But now we can inspect it pretty closely and see it as it looked when it left Pyle’s studio 126 years ago.

A Very Pyle Thanksgiving, 1899

“As you are not going home to your Thanksgiving dinner, Mrs Pyle and I would like you very much to come down and eat a piece of turkey with us.”

Howard Pyle in a letter to his student Stanley M. Arthurs, November 28, 1899 (now at the Delaware Historical Society). Pyle also invited William Francis Weed, another student. I don’t know if either of them took him up on his offer - but who could refuse?

The First Thanksgiving

In early September 1891, Horace Bradley (1862-1896) of Harper and Brothers’ Art Department wrote to ask Howard Pyle if he would consider illustrating a poem for the Thanksgiving issue of Harper’s Bazar. Pyle replied on September 4:

The subject you propose, it strikes me, is somewhat hackneyed, for “The First Thanksgiving” in New England has been done and done and done. However, I should be glad to do it still again if you desire - it always is a popular subject.

Pyle sent in the completed full-page piece on October 13 and it appeared in Harper’s Bazar for December 5, 1891, accompanying “The First Thanksgiving” by Theron Brown. In addition to what is shown here, Pyle drew an illustrated initial “O” and hand-lettered the title and text of the poem, but I’ve committed a little heresy by editing out those elements in order to display this part to better advantage. My apologies. Also, Pyle’s correspondence indicates that he drew this actual size, so the dimensions of the original should be about 9 x 10 inches.

Thanksgiving Day (Entering Politely)

A seldom seen illustration by Howard Pyle for E. I. Stevenson’s “Revolt of the Holidays” in Harper’s Young People for December 18, 1883. The reproduction in the magazine (from which I made this scan) measures 2.8 x 4.1 inches. The original ink drawing is 4.5 x 7 inches and belongs to the Delaware Art Museum.

Evacuation Day, November 25, 1783

In honor of the now-neglected Evacuation Day, which celebrated the departure of British troops from New York after the Revolutionary War, here is “The Last Boat-Load of the British Leaving New York” by Howard Pyle, an illustration for Henry P. Johnson’s article “Evacuation of New York By the British, 1783” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for November 1883. The engraver has yet to be identified, but the dimensions of the cut are 4.7 x 5.2 inches.

November 24, 1876

"I wonder how long it will be that I shall have to crawl in writing before I can begin to walk? At times I feel discouraged and then again the feeling rises strong within me that there is something in me that will produce, perhaps, worthy fruit in time. At present I am trammelled more than I can describe with stiffness in manner, crudeness in style, and self-consciousness (I do not know how else to describe it) in thought. The feet of my ideas seem clogged with the difficulties of expression; I can't open the flood gates of my mind and pour out my thoughts onto the paper. The sentences will not 'round up' so as to contain the thought in the shell of a few distinctly expressed words. I have to strike again and again with simile and hyperbole before I can crack that invisible, intangible wall that separates my internal thought from the perception of others."

Howard Pyle to his mother, November 24, 1876

November 24, 1894

"Americans lose honesty in an effort to produce something 'stunning.'"

Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute, November 24, 1894 (as recorded by Bertha Corson Day)

Howard Pyle in Black and White, November 1890

In my last post I referred to the warmth and “color” of Pyle’s black and white paintings. Here is an example of what I mean: one of 21 illustrations Pyle made for his classic children’s novel Men of Iron. It’s tongue-twistingly titled “‘Belike thou sought to take this lad’s life,’ said Sir James” and shows the brash hero, Myles Falworth, being upbraided for brawling by the stern, one-eyed Sir James Lee, in the latter‘s “bare” and “cheerless” office.

Pyle probably began writing Men of Iron in 1889 as the earliest mention of it that I’ve been able to find is in a letter of January 12, 1890. A few weeks later, on January 28, he wrote to a friend:

...I am in the midst of a book which I am elaborating with all the powers which I can bring to bear upon it. I want to make it a landmark in my life’s work and I really am inclined to think that it will be so. It is the story of the development (au natural) of a Mediæval boy into a young man and I view his life not from the outside as I did with Otto [of the Silver Hand] but from the inside.

That spring, Pyle offered the novel to Harper and Brothers, who readily accepted it on Pyle’s own terms: $1000 for serial use in Harper's Young People and a $500 advance on book royalties. He cut Harper a special deal on the illustrations: $50 for each - half his going rate.

Pyle started the illustrations in the fall of 1890 and most likely finished this particular one in the middle of November. His correspondence hints that he worked at a breakneck pace: he sent two paintings to the publisher on December 2 and two more on December 7! And although Harper's Young People reproduced the illustrations in a variety of sizes, I think Pyle did all of them on uniform pieces of canvas board measuring about 8 x 10.5 inches. The underpainting appears to be raw or burnt umber; I gather Pyle would have found raw sienna too yellow and burnt sienna too red for his purposes.

There’s not much to this one, but I’ve always loved this type of Pyle’s work: strong composition, quiet tension, assured drawing, great chiaroscuro, vigorous brushwork. Look at the slight shine on Sir James’s velvet robes - the calligraphic handling of the stone floor - the glint of light on Myles’s gorget, as he leans, cocky, yet exhausted, on the table. It may not be as overtly exciting as his action-packed pieces, but it’s Pyle at his subtle best.

Howard Pyle in Green Bay, Wisconsin

In tweaking my last post (which I reserve the right to do, now and then), I found that the Green Bay and De Pere Antiquarian Society had posted photos of the Pyle paintings it recently acquired from the Brown County Library. The photos aren’t the best quality, but it’s good to see them nevertheless. Bear in mind that the photos were taken with black and white film and, although painted in black and white oil, the originals are much warmer and more “colorful” than they appear here.

And - just so folks won’t feel misled by the title of this post - Howard Pyle did, in fact, visit Green Bay: he arrived there at noon on Saturday, November 4, 1905, and spoke at the Elks Club that evening (it was supposed to be a slide lecture, but there were last minute technical problems, so he was forced to speak without backup). He spent the night with Mr. and Mrs. George Ellis at their home at 905 South Monroe Avenue (pictured below) and left town on Sunday.

A Preliminary Study, 1902

A while back, James Gurney posted some of Howard Pyle’s sketches for “Kidd on the Deck of the ‘Adventure Galley,’” drawn (by my calculations) between mid-August and mid-September 1902. As James aptly described them, “They have the flavor of a vision snatched from the ether, a snapshot from the swirling creative vortex, a half-remembered dream.” And while they are typical of the sketches I’ve seen, Pyle didn’t necessarily jump from these shorthand jottings to the final work, but would - at least occasionally and surely for his more ambitious works - do more careful drawings in between.

Here, for instance, is a pencil study - made only a few months before the Kidd sketches - for his painting “In the Meadows of Youth” which formed part of “The Travels of the Soul” published in The Century Magazine for Christmas 1902. As you can see, Pyle meticulously rendered the model’s blouse, but loosened up considerably in the final work. The figure in the drawing, by the way, is about 11 inches high and the figure in the painting is about 16 inches high (the painting itself is about 31.5 x 17.5 inches).

Note, too, that although this scan of the original plate is pretty poor by today’s standards, Pyle was thrilled when he saw the proofs and wrote to the publisher, “I wish to express to you my great and sincere admiration for the way in which you have reproduced my pictures of the ‘Travels of the Soul.’ I had never hoped to have such really great results, and it seems to me, apart from any question of artistic excellence, that the technical rendition of the work must certainly make a notable impression upon the magazine world. I do not see how it can be otherwise, for it appears to me that if you print the Magazine at all like the proofs, you will have reached the high-water mark of color reproduction.”

In 1903, Alonzo Weston Kimball purchased the original painting and its three companions and presented them to the Kellogg Public Library (now the Brown County Library) in Green Bay, Wisconsin, but they (and 18 of Pyle’s paintings for “Colonies and Nation” by Woodrow Wilson) were recently acquired by the Green Bay and De Pere Antiquarian Society.

133 Years Ago Today

Another extract from a letter Howard Pyle wrote to his mother (whom he addresses in the Quaker style) on November 18, 1876:

…Thee strongly advised me in thy letter to stick to illustrating as my particular branch. I think thee is mistaken and that by all means a literary life is the proper one for me. Thee has not much confidence in my ability as a writer, nor have I much in myself, for I have not really turned my attention to it until within the past six months. But one thing I can say and that is that where there are hundreds - thousands - of artists who can do infinitely better and more creditable work than I can and succeed in their profession while the market is overstocked with pictures, I have not met anyone as young in years or letters as I am who has succeeded better or even as well as I have. I may make many failures at first and probably will, but it’s in me and shall come out…

It's interesting to note that Pyle felt his chances for success were stronger as writer than as an artist. Granted, his early illustrations were often crude and clumsy, so I can understand his lack of confidence. But as his reminiscences of 1870's New York tend to dwell on "art life," I often forget that - at age 23, at least - Pyle saw himself as a writer first.

November 12, 1876

The rest of the day I spent in writing, and in the evening went down to the Mercantile Library and got Howells’s A Foregone Conclusion. It makes me feel blue when I read his style and then look at my own poor endeavors, the distance is so immeasurable that it makes me heartily discouraged. I wonder if the time will ever come when I will be able to do work somewhat to my satisfaction - I begin to think there’s poor prospect.

So wrote Howard Pyle to his mother on November 12, 1876, referring to what he had done the day before. At the time Pyle was living in a boardinghouse at 250 West 38th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Manhattan. I find it somewhat helpful - if that's the right word - when folks destined for greatness reveal their doubts and struggles. Or maybe it's just Schadenfreude.

Years ago, on a whim, I went to the General Research Division at the New York Public Library and requested an early edition of A Foregone Conclusion. Lo and behold, the copy had once belonged to the New York Mercantile Library and could very well have been the same one Pyle had read back in 1876.

The Dance of the Veterans

“The Dance of the Veterans,” an unsigned wood engraving measuring 9.2 x 6.1 inches, appeared in Harper’s Weekly for July 26, 1879. The credit reads “Drawn by Howard Pyle from a sketch by Louis Joutel.”

Just as a few of Pyle’s early magazine contributions were redrawn by more experienced illustrators, here Pyle seems to have done the same for the young artist and entomologist, Louis Hippolyte Joutel (1858-1916). While it is difficult to tell where Joutel ends and Pyle begins in this piece, the treatment of the peripheral characters in particular is consistent with Pyle’s style of the late 1870s and early 1880s.

Here is the text which accompanied the picture:

DANCE OF VETERANS

Among the pleasant incidents of the National Holiday was the reunion of the surviving veterans of the war of 1812 at the Sturtevant House, in this city [at Broadway and 29th Street, New York]. Eight deaths during the past year have reduced the venerable band to fourteen, consisting of the following gentlemen: General Dally, commander of the corps, aged eighty-five; Charles Coombs, aged eighty-eight; Jacob Van Nostrand, aged eighty-six; William Tway, aged eighty-one; Thomas Megson, aged eighty-one; George Crygier, aged eighty-six; David Lopez, aged ninety-one; Barnabas Allen, aged eighty-seven; Samuel Ryckman, aged eighty-seven; Parmenas Doxey, aged eighty-eight; Elijah P. Jenks, aged seventy-eight; Thomas Stewart, aged eighty; Gardiner P. Lillibridge, aged eighty-seven. The adopted Adjutant of the corps is Mr. J. Gould Warner, a young man of about fifty. Among the visitors on this occasion were John Scott, a Continental soldier, “presumably,” says the New York World, “one hundred and twenty, but as sprightly as any of the other boys,” and Miss Sarah Scott Stafford, aged seventy-eight, a daughter of Lieutenant Stafford, who jumped overboard and saved the flag of the frigate Bonhomme Richard, but received a cutlass wound while doing it that eventually resulted in his death. She brought the old flag with her, and a musket and sabre which belonged to her father.

After the generous repast provided by the Messrs. Leland, a quadrille set was formed in one of the reception-rooms. Major Crowley led Miss Randolph to the floor, followed by General Dally with Miss Berg, Mr. Coombs with Miss Dunn, and Mr. Lopez with Miss Smith. When the quadrille was over, Major Crowley and Mr. Coombs gave a stirring exhibition of how the foot used to be shaken in the good old days. This incident was seized by our artist as the subject for the illustration to be found on page 592.

At the conclusion of the dance tickets were distributed for the excursion the veterans are to have at Spring Hill Grove, on August 4, to raise money to maintain their down-town head-quarters another year, and the company separated.

Photograph of Howard Pyle, 1906

Here is Howard Pyle, with palette and brush in hand, painting - or, more likely, pretending to paint - “The Battle of Nashville” in his studio at 1305 Franklin Street in Wilmington, Delaware.

This particular print, once owned by Frederick Hill Meserve, is a detail of a larger photograph probably taken in the early summer of 1906, just as Pyle was finishing up his painting, which he copyrighted on July 9. That fall, he sent it to St. Paul, Minnesota, where it was installed - and may still be seen - in the Governor’s Reception Room in the State Capitol building, designed by Cass Gilbert.

A Howard Pyle Blog

As I say in my profile, I avidly collect the work of Howard Pyle (1853-1911), the great American artist, author, and teacher. But that’s only a slender part of my Pylomania. I also seek out information - even seemingly meaningless or useless factoids - about his life, his family, his art school, his working and teaching methods, as well as copies of his correspondence, sketches, drawings, paintings, photographs, books, magazines, prints, ephemera and esoterica - pretty much any and every kind of tidbit that has something to do with him. So, to justify my existence and my obsession, I’ve started this blog to share some of what I’ve learned and accumulated.