A gorgeous look at popular illustrators of the Jazz Age and their influential role in the dynamic culture of the 1920s and ’30s by Heather Campbell Coyle, with contributions from Colette Gaiter, Victoria Rose Pass, and Chris Dingwall.

The 1920s in the United States was characterized by economic prosperity and dramatic social change. Known as the Jazz Age, it was a time when Black music, art, and literature became a powerful cultural force. Shifting roles for women and trends in youth culture coalesced in the figure of the flapper, causing a moral panic chronicled in the expanding popular press. Exploring how the art of popular illustration helped shape this new consciousness and impacted publishing, politics, and daily life, this volume features works by artists such as Aaron Douglas, Nell Brinkley, John Held Jr., and Loïs Mailou Jones. Their striking images illustrated the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Crisis, Liberty, and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as newspapers, novels, and books for children. Essays foreground the contributions of women and Black artists; draw parallels between music, fashion, and the aesthetics of popular illustration; discuss the impact of the Harlem Renaissance and the national growth of the Black press; highlight the legacy of illustrator Howard Pyle and his students; and consider the appropriation of the subversive jazz culture by a white audience.

Published by the Delaware Museum of Art. Heather Campbell Coyle is curator of American art at the Delaware Art Museum. Chris Dingwall is assistant professor of design history in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and a faculty affiliate in the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity at Washington University in St. Louis. Colette Gaiter is professor in the Departments of Africana Studies and Art & Design at the University of Delaware. Victoria Rose Pass is associate professor in the Department of the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture at Maryland Institute College of Art.

Hardcover, 176 pages.

From the exhibition Jazz Age Illustration on view November 8, 2025, through April 6, 2026 at Norman Rockwell Museum.

Historical