Cushing Library: Illustrators Collection

The Illustrators Collection

While many illustration collections focus on one artist, or even a handful, the Cushing Library's Illustration Collection attempts to represent the broad spectrum of illustration, from early wood engravings to war propaganda posters.

The majority of the cataloged collection is dedicated to the study of more than fifty western illustrators; including books by, about, or illustrated by such well-known figures as N.C. Wyeth, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, and native Texans José Cisneros, E.M. "Buck" Schiwetz, Harold Dow Bugbee, Ben Carlton, and Tom Lea, to name only a few. It was started by Jeff Dykes, Texas A&M class of '21, and Louis P. Merrill, class of '26, and served as the basis for Dykes' bibliography, Fifty Great Western Illustrators.

However, the collection, is not limited to materials that are strictly western in terms of subject; rather, it is an accumulation of the complete life's work of each artist. Because many of these artists studied under or followed in the footsteps of Howard Pyle, the dean of American illustrators, there are notable sections of materials illustrated by and about Pyle, as well as other famous artists from the "golden age" of American Illustration.

Additionally, through the donations of Mavis P. and Mary Kelsey, the collection is particularly strong in nineteenth-century prints and periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, Harper's Monthly, Scribner's, and Century Magazine. The Kelsey's contributions have also enriched the collection with the addition of texts about or illustrated by celebrated eighteenth-century artist-wood engraver Thomas Bewick and American illustrators Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast.