Pyle, Howard: - Howard Pyle was an American illustrator, painter, and author best known for his work on children's books. He started teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry in 1894. Violet Oakley, Maxfield Parrish, and Jessie Willcox Smith were among his students. After 1900, he established his own art and illustration school, the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art. Pitz coined the term "Brandywine School" to describe the Brandywine region's illustration painters and Wyeth family artists, many of whom had studied with Pyle. He had a lasting influence on a number of painters who went on to become well-known in their own right, including N. C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Thornton Oakley, Allen Tupper True, Stanley Arthurs, and many others. His 1883 masterpiece The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood is still in print, and his other writings, notably a four-volume set on King Arthur, typically contain medieval European settings. He is particularly well known for his pirate pictures, and is credited with establishing the present cliché of pirate garb.