Clyde Osmer De Land

Adrienne Johnson Gosselin

Clyde Osmer De Land

The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line includes four illustrations by Clyde Osmer DeLand (1872 – 1947), a promising young and promising who studied with Howard Pyle, arguably the most influential illustrator of the twentieth-century.

Originally, DeLand was a musician who attended the University of Rochester, where he studied and taught music and performed as a concert pianist. However, by the 1890s, advances in print technology, along with the development of the half-line plate, drastically reduced the cost of magazine publication, resulting in the rise of periodicals. With the increasing number of publications came an expanded market for illustration, which in turn created new positions in book illustrations, advertisements and posters. With the growing publishing trade, illustration became increasingly lucrative, so much so that the years between 1890 and 1914 became known as the Golden Age of American Illustration. Consequently, for DeLand, more than music, the burgeoning field of art held more promise as a career. As a result, he moved to Philadelphia where he attended the Drexel School of Art Science and Industry (now Drexel University).

Howard Pyle began teaching at the Drexel Institute in 1894. It was Pyle’s ambition to raise the level of illustration as an art form and to train serious students for careers in illustration. For Pyle “the idea” of the illustration came first. His interest was in capturing the dramatic moments of narrative or historical situations. He rejected the standard practices in academic art instruction, focusing instead on the dramatic effect a picture could convey. Pyle’s instruction focused on the particular needs of illustration. to the illustrator. Rather than drawing from “real life,” he stressed the importance of historical accuracy, instructing his students to study photographs and keep files for reference.

In 1898, with the help of the Drexel Institute, Pyle started a summer class at Chadd’s Ford, Pennsylvania, in order to concentrate on a handful of talented students. After two summers Pyle resigned from Drexel to build the studio at Chadd’s Ford into his own art school.

Often, when promising students approached professional status, Pyle would find them commissions, and because a recommendation from Pyle guaranteed the quality of work, many successful careers were launched. Cylde DeLand was awarded scholarships for summer study at Chadds Ford in 1898 and 1899. In 1899, DeLand received a commission to illustrate four stories in Chesnutt’s A Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line by Houghton Mifflin. In 1900, DeLand would illustrate one volume of the complete writings of Hawthorne, also published by Houghton, Mifflin. Chadd’s Ford would become the Brandywine School of Art and DeLand would go on to contribute to leading American magazines, including Harper’s Monthly, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal and American Boy.

Today, De Land is best known for patriotic illustrations that specialize in scenes of American history, such as Franklin’s Arrival at Philadelphia, Raising the First American Flag, and The First Inauguration of Washington. The sketches for The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line reveal his talent as a student, including the influence of Pyle’s emphasis on historical accuracy, as well as DeLand’s own ability to capture emotional moments in the narratives.