By the Great Pee Dee

Hyde was a well-traveled artist and pursued formal instruction from private teachers in Germany, Holland, Paris, and Japan. She enjoyed particular success as a book illustrator, where she was able to deploy many of the artistic techniques that she learned from her mentor Felix Regamey. As Hyde recalled, “To [Regamey] there was no art but Japanese art, no women except Japanese women, and no life except Japanese life… Working under his instructions I made up my mind to become a professional illustrator.” Hyde would go on to become a key popularizer of American japonisme, which refers to an appreciation for traditional Japanese aesthetics. After her visit to the Lowcountry in 1916—where she exerted a considerable influence on Alice Ravenel Huger Smith—Hyde temporarily put aside her woodcuts and began creating sketches and intaglio etchings of Southern genre scenes and African Americans at work, such as By the Great Pee Dee.