Displaying items by tag: howard pyle

Early in 1903, illustrator Howard Pyle (1853-1911) began work on a set of nine wall-sized panels for the drawing room of his home at 907 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington, Delaware. The Museum announced that all nine panels are now on view in their entirety for the first time in 75 years. They have been semi-permanently installed in the Museum’s second floor Vinton Illustration Galleries.

While two of the panels were on view during the Howard Pyle retrospective exhibition in 2011-2012, which celebrated the Museum’s 100th anniversary, the complete set has recently undergone conservation work.

If the Delaware Art Museum has a signature painting, surely it is Howard Pyle’s “Marooned.” A native of this city, Pyle is justly remembered as the father of American illustration. His “Marooned” (1909) is an image of genuine drama and distress. It shows a pirate near death, curled up on a sand bar, a tiny figure enveloped by a burning yellow sky.

The painting refers to the old custom of punishing insubordinates by shoving them off a ship and onto an island. But these days, you can also view “Marooned” as a curiously precise description of the Delaware Art Museum.