Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle

Born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia on November 11, 1876, to Newcomb Butler and Kate Ashton Thompson, Ellen began her artistic studies at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry in 1895.

She was given commissions for illustrations for periodicals and books, and she was invited to attend Howard Pyle's Brandywine School in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania both years.

There has been a great deal of discussion as to whether a woman can keep on with her work and be a competent mother.”[1] In 1919, Walter died of Bright's Disease, and Ellen, then aged 42, returned to illustration art to support her family.

“I criticized their work, and they often pose for me, and at times it seems as if everyone in the house was either painting or being painted.”[1] Pyle died on August 1, 1936, of heart disease, a few months short of her 60th birthday.

She wrote “The girl I am most interested in painting is the unaffected natural American type, the girl that likes to coast and skate in winter, who often goes without her hat, and who gets a thrill out of tramping over country roads in the fall.”[1] Some of her most memorable covers were: An original Saturday Evening Post cover by Ellen Pyle was appraised at $25,000-35,000 in 2006 on the Antiques Roadshow[2] Her first career retrospective, organized by one of her great-grandchildren, was displayed at the Delaware Art Museum in 2009.