Based on the surviving fraction of his work that he himself mostly destroyed, Walter Everett is often judged to be one of the finest painter-illustrators of the Golden Age. He studied with Howard Pyle and worked for a number of popular magazines, including Ladies’ Home Journal, Scribner’s, and the Saturday Evening Post doing mostly story illustrations. His virtuosity kept him in constant demand with art editors, but his blatant disregard for deadlines caused problems. Walter Everett broke off from illustration in his thirties, when he set fire to most of his paintings and retied from the field. Despite his relatively small amount of remaining work, his pieces are greatly admired for their use of color and elegant design sense.