Pyle left behind many students and patrons in his home town of Wilmington who wished to honor his memory through the museum, including Frank Schoonover, Stanley Arthurs, and Louisa du Pont Copeland.

The rapid growth of educational programs after World War II required the Delaware Art Center to expand by 1956.

The Delaware Art Museum's collections are predominantly drawn from late 19th- and early 20th-century American illustration, as well as works from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The basis of the museum's collections are the works of Howard Pyle and his pupils N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, and Stanley Arthurs.

[3][10] Since the 1970s, the museum has added works by modern artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Louise Nevelson, Robert Motherwell, George Segal, and Jim Dine.

It contains over 30,000 volumes and 1,000 boxes of personal papers, photographs and other material related to John Sloan, Samuel Bancroft, Jr. and Howard Pyle and his students.

Highlights include the 13-foot-tall bronze Crying Giant by Tom Otterness and Three Rectangles Horizontal Jointed Gyratory III by George Rickey, which moves in the wind.

The museum presents about ten special exhibitions each year with topics ranging from nationally known modern artists to historical Delaware folk art.

Since 2009 the exhibitions have included the works of Leonard Baskin, Delaware photographer Fred Comegys, Harold Eugene Edgerton, James Gurney, May Morris, Maxfield Parrish, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle, Frank Schoonover, and John Sloan, as well as works from the collection of the Royal Holloway, University of London, and African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum.

Special classes are offered to adults, teenagers, and children in areas including drawing, painting, photography, jewelry making, and ceramics.