He was an intimate friend and a pupil of Francis Cleyn, the manager of the Mortlake Tapestry Works, and etched numerous plates in the style of Wenceslaus Hollar, after Cleyn's designs; these include a set of eleven plates, etched in 1653, entitled "Variæ Deorum Ethnicorum Effigies, or Divers Portraicturs of Heathen Gods", a set of four representing "The Seasons", a similar set of "The Four Cardinal Virtues", and a set of fourteen plates of grotesques and arabesques.
In David Pagel’s interview with Pittman, he concludes that Pittman’s paintings include “imaginary organic forms, runaway arrows, and arabesques, transform ornamentation into a contemporary narrative of life and death, love and sex.”
In Anton Shammas' 1986 novel Arabesques, the autobiographical character of Anton reads "My Ántonia" on the plane to a writers' workshop in Iowa.