A woman who rivaled Rockwell in cover art
Ellen B.T. Pyle worked for Saturday Evening Post.
Move over, Norman Rockwell. Ellen B.T. Pyle also did her share of celebrated Saturday Evening Post covers.
The American public loved her work, and Pyle (1876-1936) even received a fan letter from Rockwell.
Delaware Art Museum is presenting the first overview of the career of Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle in a show of 50 works, "Illustrating Her World." Its book-length catalog is a page-turner. And while much of the featured artwork has been loaned by family members, it is hoped that more might come to light because of the display.
Pyle was a sister-in-law of Wilmington native Howard Pyle (1853-1911), whose work Vincent van Gogh so admired that he clipped and saved Howard's magazine illustrations.
Ellen Pyle, a daughter of lawyer Newcomb Thompson and his wife, Kate Ashton, grew up in Germantown. She soon became an illustration student of Howard Pyle's both at Drexel and in summer sessions in Chadds Ford. Yet from childhood into her early career as an illustrator, she got by on a slim pocketbook.
Then came her happy and fulfilling 15-year marriage to Walter Pyle, Howard's younger brother, and the birth of four children. During this time, illustration was set aside.
But Walter's untimely death in 1919 and the failing family leather business sent Ellen back to the easel and palette to support her children, ages 5 to 13.
Her painting style became freer, aiming for desired vignette and cameo images. She often used her three daughters as her rosy-cheeked models, delighting in bright color.
She successfully advanced her career under the watchful eye of a tough taskmaster, George Horace Lorimer, the Saturday Evening Post editor-in-chief.
Pyle created 40 of the magazine's covers from 1922 until her death in 1936, including prestigious holiday covers - right up there with Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker. She was one of the few women illustrators at the time doing covers for general-interest magazines.
Of particular interest here are insights we gain into the dynamics of the Pyle family - how family members helped one another in both work and relationships.
That's what makes the catalog a page-turner. It's the beginning of a tale that needs to be told over and over - and will, thanks to this museum's valuable research. It's also a show that deserves to travel.
Older artists
The fifth biennial exhibit of Senior Artists Initiative is up and running at the Woodmere Art Museum. It aims to boost recognition for mature artists, and get them to organize their life's work and learn how to document and inventory it.
Apparently, the earliest piece here is Harry Sefarbi's Mother and Daughter oil, circa 1950. Paintings, prints, sculpture and woodwork by nine other artists range back a decade or so and up to the present, in a well-intentioned outreach to the many gifted artists of our region. This low-key show is a valuable teaching tool.
Show of seven
Sometimes a small show strikes me as being perfect within its limits. One such display is "Off the Grid" at Sande Webster Gallery, which, with few exceptions, consists of seven artists' purely abstract, small-scale, contained intimate paintings and prints.
Most involve square panels arranged in grids. The visual richness of the work derives its beauty from continually being reinvented, not aesthetic values handed out like redeemable coupons at the checkout counter. Artists are Keith Breitfeller, Brian Dennis, Sam Gilliam, Charles Kalick, Gregg Krantz, Al Loving and Sica.