The Little Posse Started Out on its Journey, the Wiry Marshal First

One of America’s most prolific illustrators, producing images for stories such as Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and The Last of the Mohicans, N. C. Wyeth was also the father of artists Andrew Wyeth and Henriette Wyeth, grandfather of artist Jamie Wyeth, and father-in-law of artist Peter Hurd. Born in Needham, Massachusetts, Newell Convers Wyeth grew up on a farm, where he developed a deep love of nature. He studied at the Howard Pyle School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware. Pyle, one of the country's most renowned illustrators, emphasized the use of dramatic effects, the importance of sound, and personal knowledge of one's subject, teachings Wyeth used throughout his career. He made three trips to the American West between 1904 and 1906, working briefly as a cowboy near Denver, but mainly absorbing the Western experience. By 1907, Wyeth was heralded in Outing Magazine as "one of our greatest, if not our greatest, painter of American outdoor life," with his paintings appearing in many popular magazines of the period, such as Century, Harper's Monthly, Ladies' Home Journal, McClure's, and Scribner's. The Little Posse… was an illustration for Kate and Virgil D. Boyles's Langford of the Three Bars, a Western novel published in 1907.

Johnie Griffin Collection