Cover Design for the Third Annual Exhibition of the Art Department, Drexel Institute

In her third year as a student of illustration at the Drexel Institute, Bertha Corson Day designed a cover for the catalogue of the Art Department’s annual exhibition, held in June 1895. Day herself displayed watercolors in the exhibition, but it is unlikely that this watercolor represents the actual cover of the exhibition’s catalogue. She kept much of her student and class work, and therefore this may represent a rough sketch, preliminary idea, or even a class assignment based on the exhibtion.

She graduated from Drexel in 1896 but continued to study with Howard Pyle, at Drexel and his Chadds Ford summer school. Eager to find commercial work, Day sent samples and studies to publications. In 1899, she submitted work to Edward Penfield, art editor at Harper’s. He wrote back, complimenting her work and encouraging her to send more.