The Delaware Art Museum is hosting “On Assignment: American Illustration, 1850‱950,” featuring more than 50 paintings and drawings from the museum’s nationally recognized collection of original illustrations. These works demonstrate the range of styles and subjects that characterized illustrations in books and magazines from the mid-Nineteenth to the mid-Twentieth Century.
Illustration differs from traditional painting in that it was most often a work produced “on assignment,” or at the request of and to the specifications of an editor or art director. The original illustration, usually a painting or sketch, was reproduced in abundance. While working to fill specific needs, illustrators nevertheless exhibited enormous originality in their ability to dramatize a scene and capture the imaginations of diverse readers.
For working illustrators, assignments were anything but predictable. From classical literature to frontier adventure stories, romantic tear-jerkers to children’s fairy-tales, a good illustrator could do it all. The best were sought out by editors and admired by readers.
“On Assignment” offers illustrations from a variety of genres. Howard Pyle’s painting “He lost his hold and fell, taking me with him,” 1909, comes from “The Grain Ship,” a thriller that appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in March 1909. Bertha Corson Day, a student of Pyle, illustrated children’s stories, and two of her works from “Where the Wind Blows” are included.
Gayle Porter Hoskins, who continued to live in Wilmington after studying with Pyle, has several works in the exhibition, largely from Western stories. Multiple Western illustrations by Allen Tupper True are also featured.
Other genres represented in the exhibition include humor, literature, fashion, sports and silhouettes.
Organized by the Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, “On Assignment” will be on view through January 2. For more information, www.delart.org , 302-571-9590 or 866-232-3714.
