Howard Pyle Was His Idol
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Even the greatest of the great have someone they aspire to be like. For Norman Rockwell, that person was illustrator Howard Pyle. Rockwell called him his “hero” and was consumed with his work.
He was especially mesmerized by Pyle’s menacing illustration of buccaneers toting weapons while drinking booze and safeguarding treasure. Rockwell paid homage to them by including pirates in his painting Family Tree from 1959, which captured the same dark essence of Pyle’s pirates.
