Howard Pyle - The Price of Blood (1899)

A very cool find by the father of modern illustration art, Howard Pyle. Pyle is not only considered one of the first and greatest golden age illustrators, but through the illustration art school he established he also taught most of the other greats, including N.C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Frank Schoonover, and many others. Pyle was always honored as a great illustrator of adventure and children’s books - as one example, his contemporary Vincent Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo that Pyle’s work “struck me dumb with admiration.” Pyle’s oil paintings are in high demand and can fetch very high prices, but he also did mixed media book illustrations like this one, done in pen and ink and watercolor for the book “The Price of Blood,” published in 1899. I may never own one of the great Pyle paintings, but at least I can hold a little piece of history in my hand with this art, knowing that the master’s hand was at play.