Newell Convers Wyeth was an American painter and illustrator who became one of the country's most well-known illustrators of his era. He was a student of Howard Pyle and went on to create more than 3,000 paintings throughout his career. Wyeth illustrated 112 books in total, with 25 of them commissioned for Scribner's Scribner Classics series, which became the body of work for which he is best remembered. Wyeth's illustration of Treasure Island was one of his masterpieces and commercially significant enough that its proceeds funded the construction of his studio. He worked as a realist painter during a period when photography and the camera were beginning to compete with traditional illustration as a medium. His style, sometimes characterized as melodramatic, was deliberately designed to communicate its narrative content quickly and clearly to viewers. Wyeth maintained a clear philosophical distinction between painting and illustration as separate disciplines. In 1908, he stated that painting and illustration could not be mixed and that one could not merge from one into the other, reflecting his professional approach to both practices.