HOWARD PYLE was an important American illustrator and writer, primarily of books for young audiences, several of which are considered classics. Howard Pyle's BOOK OF PIRATES which used his illustrations was compiled by Merle Johnson in 1921, a decade after Pyle's passing. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Howard Pyle spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.
In 1894 Pyle began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University), and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration called the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. The term "the Brandywine School" was later applied to the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region by Pitz (it was later called the Brandywine School). Some of his more famous students were Olive Rush, N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Elenore Abbott, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle, and Jessie Willcox Smith.
Pyle traveled to Florence, Italy to study mural painting in 1910, and died there in 1911 of sudden kidney infection, also known as Bright's Disease.
2009 Rare Book Consignments™