Anna Whelan Betts

Anna Whelan Betts studied at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Drexel University. The field of work recorded is illustration. Howard Pyle is recorded as an influence. Work by Anna Whelan Betts is recorded in the collections of Brandywine Museum of Art and New Britain Museum of American Art.

• Name — Anna Whelan Betts • Born — 15 May 1873 • Birthplace — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Died — 6 February 1959 • Place of death — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Known for — Illustration • Training — Pennsylvania Academy Drexel Institute • Illustration — Christmas Callers, an illustration by Betts that appeared in the December 1904 edition of The Century Magazine

Betts was born on May 15, 1873 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the oldest of three children of the physician Thomas Betts and Alice Whelan. Her sister, Ethel Franklin Betts, also became an artist. Betts studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia with Robert Vonnoh. After graduating, she moved to Paris where she was tutored by the French painter Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois.

Upon returning to the United States, she studied illustration under Howard Pyle, a professor of illustration art at Drexel Institute, now Drexel University, in Philadelphia. He later founded the Howard Pyle School of Art in Wilmington, Delaware. Betts's first published illustration was for Collier's magazine in 1899. Her work later appeared in many of the popular magazines of the early 1900s including Century Magazine, Harper's, The Ladies’ Home Journal, and St. Nicholas Magazine. Her earliest book illustrations appeared while she was still a Howard Pyle student. For example, Betts illustrated Sarah Orne Jewett's 1899 publication of Betty Leicester’s Christmas published by Houghton Mifflin Company. And in 1900 she was one of the community of illustrators chosen to provide illustrations for The Complete Writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne in 22 volumes by Houghton, Mifflin Company. Betts created the illustrations for volume 1. Betts was honored as a fellow at the Pennsylvania Academy and won several medals, including a bronze medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) in San Francisco. After her eyesight began failing in 1925, Betts was advised to retire from illustration. She joined the faculty of the small private boys' school, Solebury School, where she worked as an administrator, hostess and art teacher. In 1944, Betts retired from teaching and moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, to live with her sister Ethel.

On February 6, 1959, Betts died at their home in Philadelphia.