Worth Brehm’s Telling Stories illustrates what an illustration is. To illustrate is to illuminate, like a spelunker does a cave, as the literary historian J. Hillis Miller notes. In Brehm’s charcoal drawing of one boy telling a story to two others, the lantern at the center refers not only to

Oneida Community, Ltd., specialized in producing silver plate and stainless steel flatware marketing “to the woman of modest means who dreamt of having ‘correct service’ with which to decorate her table.”* Instead of selling their product at high end shops, Oneida offered their silver plate at hardware stores, department stores,

This morning I looked for a seasonal illustration focused on returning to school. I received an email from my brother reminiscing about the beginning of the school year and mentioning that the elementary school we attended had been demolished. After seeing the photos a classmate had taken before and during the

Like any person gone off to war, in quiet moments their thoughts often turn to home. For this 1918 cover for Country Gentleman magazine Frank Xavier Leyendecker, younger brother of the illustrator J. C. Leyendecker, carefully crafted the image of the young World War I soldier sitting on the edge

Howard Pyle (1853-1911)|The Nation Makers, 1903|Illustration published in Collier’s Weekly (June 2, 1906)|Oil on canvas|Brandywine River Museum, purchased through a grant from the Mabel Pew Myrin Trust, 1984|(Photography copyright Brandywine River Museum, 2009) Wander the web and you will find dozens of reproductions of Howard Pyle’s  1903 painting, The

Charlotte Harding was trained as an artist at the School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) in Philadelphia and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Between 1897 and 1899 Harding studied illustration with Howard Pyle at Drexel Insitutite. Under Pyle’s direction she prepared illustrations

In 1901, 30-year old Elizabeth Shippen Green was awarded an exclusive contract creating illustrations for Harper’s Monthly Magazine. That same year Green along with artists Jessie Willcox Smith (1874-1961) and Violet Oakley (1863-1935), and their friend Henrietta Cousins (ca. 1859-1940) took up residence in a 200-acre estate in Villanova, a

Stories about the life of artists and views into artists’ studios were frequently published in American newspapers and magazines throughout the last quarter of the 19th century. Not only were artists and their activities a bit bohemian and therefore interesting, but visiting studios and going to gallery exhibitions were commonplace

During the 1948 baseball season, Norman Rockwell visited Ebbets Field, home to New York’s Brooklyn Dodgers. He brought along a hired photographer to capture reference images of the ballpark, baseball players, and umpires, for his 1949 Saturday Evening Post cover illustration, Tough Call. Rockwell carried the reference photographs with him

There are two layers of action in this N. C. Wyeth calendar illustration, Seeking the New Home from 1935-36: the inward turning grouping of the mother and children all focused around the cook fire; and the outward turned man, dog, and oxen. Even though the oxen are foraging their dinner,