It seems strange to me that all these years people have apparently taken Howard Pyle for granted, and yet scarcely written a word about him as one of the biggest men of his calibre, or of any calibre, that we have in this country.So said Homer Saint-Gaudens, son of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, on June 1, 1911. He was addressing Robert Underwood Johnson, then editor of The Century Magazine. “So I thought that I would start on a pilgrimage to find whether or no some magazine would not care for an article upon him by me, and I am beginning with you,” Saint-Gaudens added.
Johnson didn’t take the bait. Nor - as far as I can tell - did any other editor. Granted, Pyle wasn’t particularly newsworthy at that time, but I wonder if there wasn’t a subtle prejudice against him. Sometimes I think he wasn’t European enough for America - or at least for the American taste-makers.
Posts
2 comments:
Do you think we're in a period of renewed appreciation for Pyle? To me, there seems to be a lot of coverage of him these days and frequent reference to his important position in American Illustration, but that could just be because I've begun paying more attention.
I think so. He's still somewhat marginalized as "just an illustrator" and the tiresome "but is it art?" hand-wringing about his work will probably never go away. But the 100th anniversary of his death and the accompanying exhibits - among other things - have helped raise his profile.
Post a Comment