Pyle Students
John Wolcott Adams was born on November 7, 1874, in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of John Francis and Ellen Wilson Adams and descendant of an established New England family which had produced two United States presidents. He first studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and, in 1898, he went to New York, where he attended the Art Students League classes. Soon his work began to appear in well-known magazines of the day, and he would become a frequent contributor to such periodicals as Everybody's, Success, Youth's Companion, Saturday Evening Post, Delineator, Collier's, and others. Then Adams came to Wilmington to study with Howard Pyle as an established professional illustrator. He attended the 1904 Monday night lectures where Pyle sometimes commented on his drawings of New England scenes, as recorded in the Rush-Leach notebooks. For part of 1904 Adams shared a studio with Henry Peck, while Clifford Ashley was away. After his sojourn in Wilmington, Adams settled in New York permanently. In 1903 he married Francis Pendleton Sheldon, who divorced him in 1920; they had one daughter, Frances.
Clifford Ashley was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on December 18, 1881, son of Abiel Davis and Caroline Morse Ashley. After graduation from New Bedford High School he went to Boston to study art at the Eric Pape School, which N.C. Wyeth, Sidney Chase, and Ashley's cousin Henry Peck also attended. The four students spent the summer of 1901 in Annisquam, Massachusetts, under George L. Noyes's tutelage.
William James Aylward was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 5,1875. His father was a shi builder and lake captain, and as a boy Aylward spent many hours in the shipyards and acquired a lifelong love of the sea. His first jobs were for engraving houses in Milwaukee and Chicago, work which he described to Richard Lykes (in a letter in 1946) as "ten years of drudge at commercial work." At the age of twenty-six decided that he would like to learn to paint, and wrote to Howard Pyle, asking if he could study under him. Pyle suggested that he first submit some of his work. Too impatient to do that, Aylward came East to Wilmington with Arthur Becher, was accepted as a student, and shared the middle studio on Franklin Street with Becher, Clifford Ashley, Gordon McCouch, Henry J, Peck, and Ernest J. Cross. In Wilmington he met and married Ida Dougherty, a Pyle student who specialized in portraits.
Anna Whelan Betts was born in Philadelphia and spent most of her life in the Delaware Valley. She began her career as an artist studying with Robert Vonnoh at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and continues at Drexel under Howard Pyle. From 1897 to 1899, Anna Betts was a member of Pyle's school of illustration. She also attended Pyle's summer school at Chadds Ford in 1899 with Bertha Corson Day, Ellen Bernard Thompson, and Sarah S. Stilwell. Betts and her fellow students did illustrations during 1899 for Paul Leicester Ford's Janice Meredith, which was to be published in Collier's, From this beginning, Betts went on to illustrate magazines including Harper's Monthly, Century, Ladies' Home journal, and St. Nicholas, as well as books.
Ethel Franklin Betts, sister of Anna Whelan Betts, spent most of her life in the Philadelphia area. After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she studied with Howard Pyle at Drexel School of Illustration in 1899. She moved to Wilmington with other Pyle upils in 1900, when their teacher set up studio, and classes in Delaware. There she shared a studio with her sister, Anna, and Dorothy Warren. She remained in Wilmington for two winters, the second of which she lived in the Pyle household. After leaving Pyle's studio, she worked in a studio in her parent's barn until her marriage in 1909. After her marriage, she did little work, mainly illustration, for school texts and portraits.
Harold Matthews Brett was born in Middleboro, Massachusetts, on December 3,1880, and grew up in Brookline, a suburb of Boston. His study of art began in 1900 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he attended the classes of Philip Hale and Frank Benson. In 1901 Brett moved to New York, where he studied and was awarded three scholarships at the Art Students League; H. Siddons Mowbray, Kenyon Cox, and Waiter Appleton Clark were among his teachers there. Brett set up his own studio in 1903.