“I was struck dumb with admiration”~Vincent van Gogh, speaking about Howard Pyle.
The Delaware Art Museum Celebrates 100 years
The Delaware Art Museum,in Wilmington, was founded in 1912 to preserve and exhibit the art of Howard Pyle following his untimely death in November 1911. Its recent eshibition, “Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered” kicks off a series of shows and events that the museum’s centennial. For more information on upcoming programs and events, visit www.delart.org
As a painter, writer, and teacher, Howard Powell believed in the practice of mentally projecting, or envisioning unseen worlds through the lens of one’s on experience. Here are a few other concepts this great artist and teacher believed:
- Concentrating solely on copying could stifle the imagination.
- Too much emphasis on technique would result in a kind of overindulgence in which the means became more important than the message.
- A great many thumbnail sketches before settling on the final design. He sometimes made as many as 50 for a single painting.
- The fewer the tones, the simpler the picture.
- An artist should lighten the light areas and darken the dark areas so that the lights and darks were distinct from each other.
- Push every picture toward the extremes. A painting with a thousand birds in the air should show one or a thousand.
During his life, Howard Pyle was considered the father of American magazine illustration by The New York Times. He was a consistent contributor to Harper’s Monthly, Collier’s Weekly, and Scribner’s Magazine. During a period of explosive growth in the publishing industry, he was one of America’s most popular illustrators and storytellers.
He had a great many famous students. N.C. Wyeth (the father of Andrew Wyeth) was one of his students. Another student, Elizabeth gurney, said that Pyle’s most frequent admonition was “Respect the truth.”(This quote was taken from May 2012 issue of American Artist Magazine.)
