LAURENCES.

CUTLER
JUDY GOFFMAN CUTLER
& THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION
 U.S. $50.00
Canada $55.00
U.K. £25.00

One of the most prolific and sought-after artists of the

Golden Age of American illustration, Joseph Christian
Leyendecker captivated the public with his striking,
fashionable depictions of handsome men and glamorous
women. With his instantly identifiable style—“The
Leyendecker Look”—he helped shape the face of a nation,
created dozens of enduring icons, and virtually invented
the concept of branding in advertising. Yet until now, little
has been known about the man behind the art.
This first book about the artist in more than thirty
years reveals the truth and spirit of this elusive man.
J.C. Leyendecker captured lifestyles with superior
technical skills, with an imaginative use of subject, and
with an originality that many have sought to imitate.
Dubbed the “Master of the Magazine Cover” by Norman
Rockwell—who modeled both his technique and his career
on his mentor—Leyendecker created illustrations that
graced the covers of all the leading magazines, including
Collier’s, The Century, and Scribner's. His 322 covers for The
Saturday Evening Post—more than any other artist—were so
significant that they changed the way the nation looked at
the world, introducing the concept of the New Year’s Baby,
Mother’s Day flowers, and the pairing of football with
Thanksgiving, among other seminal ideas.
His work in advertising was equally influential, as he
created sustained campaigns for products that ranged
from high-fashion menswear to Ivory Soap and Kellogg’s
Corn Flakes. But he is perhaps best known for his portrayal
of the Arrow Collar Man, the first male sex symbol and
the first advertising star of either gender. These images
of a sophisticated, elegant gentleman resonated with
millions of viewers and sold to an eager society the idea
of a glamorous lifestyle that helped mold the Roaring
Twenties. Little did the public know that the Arrow Collar
Man was in fact Leyendecker’s longtime lover, Charles
Beach. Leyendecker lived for most of his life with Beach
and modeled many of the other stylish men in his artwork
on him as well. In the attempt to hide his homosexuality
from public scrutiny, Leyendecker kept many of the details
of his private life to himself; nevertheless he has gathered a
strong following in the gay-interest community.
More than 600 original paintings, photographs,
advertisements, and magazine covers, including all 322
for the Saturday Evening Post, testify to the brilliance and
importance of this powerful, iconic image maker. The
revealing text delves into both his artistic and his personal
evolution, uncovering much new material and setting the
record straight on many of the questions that had clouded
Leyendecker’s history until this day. Together the art and
text of J.C. Leyendecker restore this groundbreaking artist’s
rightful position in the pantheon of great American imagists.
JC. LEYENDECKER
 AMERICAN IMAGIST
ee LAURENCE, CUTLER =
pie JUDY GOFFMANCUTLER
ae 3 7 & THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION aS

Uwe ABRAMS, NEW YORK

 Dedicated to second children, especially boys, and these in particular:

Jeffrey Alpert, Martin Elliot Cutler, Zachary Wolf Cutler, Jacob Cutler,
Andrew Douglas Goffman, Jon Greenawalt, Jr., Julian Asher Banks Greenawalt,

and

Joseph Christian Leyendecker

EDITOR: Beverly Fazio Herter

DESIGNER: Laura Lindgren
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jules Thomson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Cutler, Laurence S.
J.C. Leyendecker /by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8109-9521-5 (Abrams)
1, Leyendecker,J.C. (Joseph Christian), 1874-1951—Catalogs. 2. Magazine illustration—United States—20th
century—Catalogs. I. Leyendecker,J.C. (Joseph Christian), 1874-1951. II. Cutler, Judy Goffman.
III. Title.
NC975.5.L4A4 2008
741.6'52092—dc22 2008014691

Copyright © 2008 Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler and

The National Museum of American Illustration

JC Leyendecker® courtesy of ARTShows and Products Worldwide (ASaPWorldwide)

Saturday Evening Post cover images © SEPS: www.curtispublishing.com

Published in 2008 by Abrams, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion ofthis
book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Printed and boundin China

1098765432
Abrams books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as
well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact
[email protected] or the address below.

cover: Adapted from Quality by Kuppenheimer (Mermaid and Handsome Men). c. 1930. PAGE 1: Baby Saluting. 1940.
Oil on board, 17 x 24'/2". Amoco advertisement. pace 2: Vacation (detail). 1907. pacE 3: Man Reading the Paper. 1916.
Oil on canvas, 29'/2 x 20". Arrow collar advertisement. pace 7: Self—Portrait. 1897. Pencil on paper, 8°/; x 6'/2".

HNA BEDDE
harry n. abrams, inc.
a subsidiary of La Martiniére Groupe
115 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
www.hnabooks.com
 SOM PEN TS

FOREWORD 9

THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION

13

THE LEYENDECKER LIFE

19

THE LEYENDECKER LOOK

55

The Art of Advertising in a Product-Oriented Society 71

Master of the Magazine Cover 100
Book Illustration 212
Posters: The People's Art 224

LEYENDECKER AND THE AMERICAN IMAGISTS:

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
229

AFTERWORD 234
CHRONOLOGY 242
NOTES 247
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 248
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 252
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS 254
INDEX 254
ce
 FOREWORD

The J.C. Leyendecker story is more than elusive, for very little information exists on either
this great illustrator’s life or his artworks. In fact, only one other book, Michael Schau’s
J.C. Leyendecker, published in 1974, a poster book, and a handful of articles were written
in more than halfa century since his death. For this reason, Leyendecker’s paintings have
proudly stood alone, speaking for themselves, until now.
Leyendecker’s paintings on magazine covers and in advertisements were widely
recognized by admirers nationwide. He was the most popular illustrator of his day and
was published in the most popular magazines. Yet he moved among commuters on trains,
mixed in markets and shops, on high streets, virtually unrecognized by an adoring public.
J.C. Leyendecker (“Joe” to family and friends) was a mysterious figure who shied
away from the limelight and its consequent public scrutiny. Nevertheless, his fame
and accomplishments as an illustrator were legion and lasting, and his time for
acknowledgment has arrived.
Joe Leyendecker was a homosexual when it was nearly impossible to live such a life
openly. While gay subcultures existed at the beginning of the twentieth century in New
York and San Francisco, the homophobic disease was prevalent throughout the country.
In Leyendecker’s later years, Senator JoeMcCarthy was on his anti-Communist tirades
and anti-liberal witch-hunts, and it seemed that the whole world was intimidated by all-
pervasive prejudice. Such an environment clearly accounts for the lack of information on
this important icon-maker, perhaps the greatest American Imagist.
To conceal his gay lifestyle, Leyendecker meticulously cleansed his files and records of
anything homosexually explicit or implicit. Only in his artwork can one find sex symbols
and homoerotic images, which he caused to appear subtle or not so subtle. After his death,
Joe’s life-partner for nearly fifty years, Charles Beach, had been ordered to destroy all
records, correspondence, even remaining original artworks.
While always sought after by the press, Leyendecker rarely gave interviews or
permitted photographs. Consequently, there are very few photos of him or Charles Beach.
Beach was his favorite model, and together they became the prototype for same-sex
couples of their generation. Today, they are recognized by the gay community for their
long-standing domestic partnership, alongside the likes of filmmakers Merchant & Ivory; Interwoven advertisement. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, April 27, 1929. The model
J. Edgar Hoover and Special Agent Clyde Tolson; Michelangelo and his muse, Tomaso is posed in the alcove of Leyendecker’s New
de’ Cavalieri; and the notorious Oscar Wilde and his lover, poet Lord Alfred “Bosie” Rochelle studio.
Douglas of Hawick. (Coincidently, Joe treasured Wilde’s writings—he read everything by
Wilde, keeping his works on a shelf in his studio—and also the gossip whirling around his
relationship with Bosie.)
In consequence ofthe above, it is not surprising that a Leyendecker archive does not
exist. Nor are there stashes of letters, hidden troves, or any direct heirs to share family
scrapbooks with an increasingly inquiring world. As a result, though Leyendecker was
perhaps the primary image-maker in American civilization, when he died in 1951, his
flame had already dimmed. He was all but forgotten save for by a few colleagues who
coveted his incredible art. Only a very few, devoted Leyendecker collectors have any
remnants, the detritus ofhis life, and it is spread so very thinly across the globe. Most of
this we have been able to find and assemble, like cold case detectives.
Nearly forty years after his death, in 1989 the public had a major reawakening with
An Age of Elegance, a milestone exhibition at American I]lustrators Gallery NYC (AIG).
Four years later, Joe was included in “The Great American I]lustrators” exhibition,
which toured Japan to record-breaking audiences, organized by AIG. In 1997, the “J.C.
Leyendecker: A Retrospective Exhibition” was held at the Norman Rockwell Museum to
adoring fans and “J.C. Leyendecker: The Retrospective” exhibition was simultaneously
held at the American Illustrators Gallery to public acclaim. At that time, editor Eric
Himmel and the late Paul Gottlieb, Editor in Chief of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., encouraged
us to move forward with a book on Leyendecker. Almost simultaneously, we acquired
Newport’s fantastical Gilded Age mansion Vernon Court, and founded the National
Museum ofAmerican Illustration (NMAI), devoted exclusively to illustration art. It
includes the largest collection of original J.C. Leyendecker artworks.
This proposed book was shelved for practical reasons and is revived now that the
museum is fully established. We dusted off the manuscript after ten years in storage,
synthesized previously gathered materials, and restarted our search for Leyendecker in
libraries, museums, archives, and on the internet. We visited Paris, finding the alley near
Boulevard St. Germain des Prés where Joe and his illustrator brother F.X. Leyendecker
lived in 1896. We visited the Académie Julian, where they studied under European masters
in the Beaux Arts tradition, during La Belle Epoque. The Salmagundi Club, where he was a
member alongside other notable illustrators Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, and Charles Dana
Gibson, could only tell us that “he was a member.” We rummaged through art research
libraries, visited with his models, colleagues, aficionados, and collectors from Palm Beach
to the Fiesole hills where Leyendecker visited Michelangelo’s studio in 1897. We visited the
Mount Tom Road estate to see what Norman Rockwell characterized as the “Leyendecker
mansion.” Today it houses a kindergarten and day-care program, which retains a vibrant
interest in Joe Leyendecker and his work.
In the midst ofthis long quest, we fortuitously met one of his models, a wildly dynamic
woman in her eighties, who had posed from 1922 to 1925. Phyllis Frederic met the
Leyendecker couple through her actor father, Pops Frederic, a silent screen star. Phyllis
openly accepted Charles and Joe as they were and they reacted quite kindly toward her
from the moment they met—three extraordinary people. Her family, all actors, modeled
for both F.X. and J.C. Leyendecker, and for Norman Rockwell as well. She had photo
albums to prove her remembrances, replete with hair cuttings (Joe’s and Charles’s too)
and other memorabilia. Her anecdotal stories are included herein and were verified by her
albums. With Phyllis’s help, we visited a number of sites around Manhattan frequented by
the artist and his coterie.
In actual fact, our archives at the American Illustrators Gallery proved to be our
richest resource. Most of Leyendecker’s original artworks have passed through AIG over
the past thirty-five years, and we have compiled a collection of more than 1,300 images as
a result of our research.
We know you will enjoy J.C. Leyendecker’s artworks as presented in these pages, and
we are hopeful that yet more information on his life and work will emerge with the ever-
increasing interest in this great American Imagist.
Judy and Laurence Cutler
National Museum of American Illustration
Vernon Court
Newport, Rhode Island
Spring 2008

OPPOSITE AND RIGHT: Kuppenheimer Good

Clothes (Sailor Farewell) (details). 1917. Oil on
canvas, 27 x 40/2". House of Kuppenheimer
advertisement
 et er Penne AIAN NEN ARTIS IN
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QRH SENN NN
THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION

was aneraofunparalleled
. ; The half-century period between 1895 and 1945
ie ®|| excellence inbook, magazine, and advertising design. During this Golden
Hg Dj Age ofAmerican Illustration, masters oftheartcreated 2 visual history that
vividness
le,
and
L288 ||notonly captured viewers ofthetime with itsintensity. sty
Leyendecker. With hisinstantly
no Golden Age artist made more ofanimpact thanJ.C.
on, he influenced the artofiinstration
recognizable style andhisproclivity forself-promoti
younger artists most
immeasurably. He became a mentor toanentire generation of
technique onLeyendecker's
notably Norman Rockwell, who modeled hisowncareer and
those halcyon days, depicted 2 festyie
His powerfal, iconic images, theblockbusters of
. He
millions of viewers and came to symbolize American culture
withted
that resona
2 magazine.
transformed society with the tum ofa single page in
art
and of illustration
To hetter understand the overall impact ofJ.C. Leyendecker,
illustr ation was the only way
ingeneral, onemust recall thecontext oftheage. when
magazines were thefirstto use
forthepublic toreceive images. Harper's andScribmer’s
periodicals soon jumped onto
wood engravings fortheir covers, asselling tools. Other

through thearticles, complementing

image served a different function: itcarried readers
magazines offered images. Their
and clarifying thetext.Itwas notlongbefore nearlyall
readership demanded it.
kers andyellow journalism
New periodicals werelaunched almost weekly, 2smuckra

ent. Asa consequence ofthe

storytelling formforthepublic, became even more preval

s”
media moguls into thelimelight as“movers and shaker
icals evolve d from engraving onwoodblocks
Printing ofillustrations inperiod
line-m ethods to,inthelate1890s.
and hand-etched metal plates tophotomechanical asOwe: Howerd Dyle. Merooned! 1537 Oil om
comes. 16n°
alized, print quality leapt ahead.
halftones. Immediately older techniques were margin oesosite: Ridalfe and Gismonde 1906. Oil on
With theadvent ofrotary presses and more efficient distribution systems, periodicals 22 x 18" Signed lower right. Repreduced
noes ave
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. : eee
illustrations soenthusiastically
reached their rapacious andiences overnight. Sceing their
= z

s and inadvertisements, 19 R Williams Je

received byreaders, publishers tried images onposter
 OV
rane — Lu > Lu Ze (a Lu O NM Lu faa
 iW.
FOR U.S. ARMY
NEAREST RECRUITING STATION

ABOVE: James Montgomery Flagg. / Want You.

World War | U.S. Army recruiting poster

LEFT: Norman Rockwell. Miss Liberty. 1943. Oil

on canvas, 41°/4 x 31'/4"

Norman
Rockwell

delighted public. Artists experienced new freedoms of creative expression and welcomed
a multitude of new corporate clients. When four-color printing was introduced, the art
witnessed an even greater boom.
Like their modern counterparts Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, albeit through
different mediums, illustrators became wealthy celebrities for giving the people
contemporary images. J.C. Leyendecker, creator of icons; Norman Rockwell, America’s
most beloved and best-known illustrator; Maxfield Parrish, whose romantic and OPPOSITE: N.C. Wyeth. Frontier Trapper. 1920.
fantastical pictures have been reproduced more than any other artist, ever; Charles Oil on canvas, 34 x 32"

J.C. LEYENDECKER 15
 Dana Gibson, whose world-famous Gibson Girl created a standard of feminine beauty;
Jessie Willcox Smith, considered by many to be the greatest children’s book illustrator;
N.C. Wyeth, whose swashbuckling, prototypical heroes swept the public consciousness;
Howard Pyle, “The Father of American IIlustration’; James Montgomery Flagg, whose ial
Want You” portrait of Uncle Sam still points the way today; C. Coles Phillips and Howard
Chandler Christy, creators of the Fadeaway Girl and the Christy Girl, respectively; and
many other memorable graphic artists became household names in the Golden Age.
The leading illustrators were sought after by the highest echelons of society. They
rubbed elbows with popular stage and screen stars, influential statesmen, and scions of
business and industry. So great was their renown that it penetrated beyond the sphere
of the art world. When in 1921 the first Miss America Pageant was held in Atlantic City,
America’s playland, Howard Chandler Christy was chairman ofthe panel of judges. The
public recognized that a famous illustrator would be the ultimate choice to select the
most beautiful woman in America, for illustrators set the standards for nearly everything
Jessie Willcox Smith. Mother and Child. 1921.
Mixed mediums on illustration board, 20" round of aesthetic importance. In the second year ofthe contest, Christy selected other
illustrators—including Rockwell, Phillips, and Flagg—as judges.
By the end of World War I, the United States had grown into an emerging world power.
Brilliant ideas abounded. A modern age emerged from stifling, conservative Victorian
customs, leading the way into the exciting, liberal Roaring Twenties. Such universal
excitement gave birth to new styles in fashion, excessive drinking and smoking, debs and
vamps, dolls and swells, playboys—and a newfound commercialism.
Advertising grew into a serious profession, molding lifestyles at will. It was at once a
heyday and a turning point, as creative power was harnessed for millions to appreciate.
The public thirst for a new, idealized lifestyle combined with rapid communications
enabled the savvy young artist-illustrator
J.C. Leyendecker to take the country by storm.

Charles Dana Gibson. Gibson Girl. 1908.

Charcoal on paper

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RIGHT: Maxfield Parrish. Daybreak. 1922. Oil on

panel, 26'/2 x 43'/2"

opposite: Howard Chandler Christy. The Dawn

of Victory (Stand by Your President). 1933. Oil
on canvas, 60 x 40"

16 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 var
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 THE LEYENDECKER LIFE

The art world changed forever in 1874, for two reasons. One, an
Impressionist art exhibition was held for the first time in Paris. That
exhibition’s impact was resounding, for Impressionists depicted reality in
a totally new manner, using the secondary effects oflight and color, and
changing all two-dimensional perceptions thereafter.
The second seminal event of 1874 was the birth of Joseph Christian Leyendecker.
Known as Joe to family and friends, J.C. to the public, Leyendecker spent his early years
in Montabaur, a tenth-century town in the Rhineland-Palatinate situated in the heart of
Westerwald, in southwestern Germany. Originally known as Humbach, Montabaur had
its name changed by the Crusaders to “Mons Tabor” after the mountain in Lower Galilee,
Israel. Crusaders settled in the area, adding a coat of arms suggested by Archbishop
Dietrich II von Weid. Years later Joe Leyendecker, under their residual influence, collected
armor, coats of arms, and medieval paraphernalia. He also had a passion for twelfth-
century illuminated manuscripts (illustration by definition) and calligraphy.
One of Montabaur’s most notable structures, a fifteenth-century Gothic church called
St. Peter in Chains, was known for a mural, The Last Judgment, that graced its thick walls.
Although it was acknowledged by a local priest as the only worthwhile painting within a
hundred kilometers, the Leyendecker family managed to escape its aesthetic influence. At
that time, there were no other cultural elements to inspire local youths.
Indeed, when Joe was born, there was nothing much to recommend Montabaur, either
aesthetically or economically. With virtually no industry (today internet commerce thrives
there), few prospects existed for more than menial labor, and locals—Peter Leyendecker
(1838-1916), a brewer, and wife, Elizabeth (1845-1905), née Ortseifen, among them—
emigrated in droves. With dreams ofjoining Elizabeth’s uncle at his brewery in the United
_ States, the Leyendeckers left Montabaur for Chicago in 1882 to seek a better life for their
hy, four kinder: Adolph A. Leyendecker (1869-1938), Augusta Mary Leyendecker (1872-1957),
Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951), and Franz Xavier Leyendecker (1879-1924),
known as Frank or F.X.
To a large degree their dreams were fulfilled. Elizabeth’s uncle John McAvoy had built
his McAvoy Brewing Company into an immensely popular beer business. As the ambitious
Leyendecker family settled into a comfortable apartment in Hyde Park, their aspirations
for their children were, for the first time, legitimately hopeful. Peter had a job, and his Arrow Shirt Collar advertisement. 1914
 family was adjusting well to the new bustling environment in Chicago, a long way from
Montabaur.
The Leyendecker family matched a prototypical new immigrant profile: white, Anglo-
Saxon, Catholic, with a European heritage drawing from Spain, France, Alsace-Lorraine
(Protestant from as early as 1523), Holland, and Germany. Regina Armstrong, a close
family friend in later years, wrote that the brothers “drew from several strains to mould
art; Holland ancestors were merchants contributing stability and resourcefulness; from
the French and Spanish there had been artists and musicians and litterateurs, and so
there culminated therein rhythm, poetry and a white fire of transfiguring absorption to
a given calling that we call genius.” Yet Joe always claimed that the Leyendeckers were
pure Dutch; perhaps he was not clear about the origins of aDutch family from Germany’s
Rhineland, given two world wars promulgated by Germans against his new country.
However, Leyendecker is a common German surname in the Montabaur region meaning
“slater,” someone who makes slate roofs.
Leyendecker ancestry traces back to a sect of Sephardic Jews who emigrated from
Spain in the fifteenth century to escape the horrors of the Inquisition. They drifted into
France (Peter’s ancestry was traced partially to Alsace in 1648 after the Franco-Prussian
War) and thence to Holland, known as a safe haven for its gracious acceptance of foreign
immigrants. It was common practice in the Jewish Diaspora for Sephardic families to
The Leyendecker and Ortseifen children, 1892 pragmatically convert to Catholicism en route to their destination.
Phyllis Frederic, one of J.C. Leyendecker’s models, claimed that J.C.’s initials
originally stood for “Jesus Christ.” Joe told her that his father put the ultimate Christian
emphasis on both his and Frank’s names—Frank was named after Saint Francis Xavier, a
Spaniard—to further protect the family from discovery of their origins. (Author Michael
Schau’s research substantiates a familial emphasis on the name “Christian” by pointing
to Joe’s maternal grandfather, Christian Ortseifen, and his godfather, Christian Joseph
Leyendecker.) Joe legally changed his name to “Joseph Christian” in his teens and
rarely talked about family. Nor did he, an agnostic, tolerate speculative stories about the
religious origins of his surname. After all, in the melting pot that was America, everyone
was encouraged to forget their past and to look together to their future. Joe Leyendecker
loved his adopted country and chose to thrust aside his birthplace and religious origins.
At very young ages, the Leyendecker boys embodied characteristics similar to most
American immigrants of the day. They studied hard and worked hard under the tutelage
of encouraging parents. Although their sister, being a girl, had few prospects, the three
brothers were urged on in their creative pursuits. Elizabeth enjoyed letting her sons draw
on the kitchen table oilcloth, and she admiringly hung their sketches on hallway walls.
The children were close while growing up. Joe and Frank were inseparable as young
men, but Adolph, the eldest, appears to have disappointed his parents from the beginning.
As the first born, he would normally have engaged the lion’s share of the family’s
attention; however, that does not seem to have been the case. A recently discovered family
photograph (see above left) shows Adolph standing on the ground with the help of a cane,
while his two brothers are near each other high on a trellis. In those times, many children

20 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 Uyak
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i~\e

Joy;

RACE
A ke
gh ADOLPH A. LEYENDECKER (1869-1938)
A)
et Glass Artist and Brother
:126

ye
AEC)
WIA Until recently, no one had even considered the possibility that there
was a third Leyendecker brother, especially another artist. Adolph A.
ape
Zz
iS
‘Leyendecker, a stained-glass artist, hitherto unknown, did, however,
definitely exist. His middle name is listed in records as Aaych (possibly
Aliyah), although it may have been Adam, and he spent most of his adult
% Ee
life in Kansas City, Missouri.
#i
oe
The first notice of a fourth sibling was gleaned from Frank beaver:
decker’s obituary, “He is survived by his brother Joseph, a brother
a(t}
LAx},

Mefi) Adolph of Kansas City, and a sister Augusta Mary, who made her home
st
ES with him.” The second came from Joe Leyendecker’s funeral documents,
which mentioned Joseph A. Leyendecker, a nephew from Kansas:
e(io
te

Adolph’s son. Further investigations showed that immigration records

ES(iB indicate that six persons with the Leyendecker name entered the United
ea States together in 1882, a set of parents and four children.
D
Le Adolph’s predilection for stained glass may have inspired his younger
OE
(a brothers to pursue art careers. As youths, Adolph and Frank briefly
Adolph A. Leyendecker. St. Patrick. 1915.
Stained glass

ool
AY
studied with Carl Brandt, a German-born artist interested in design and
glass as a medium, while Joe apprenticed at Manz. When Joe and Frank
left for Paris, Adolph apparently remained in Chicago; there are no further findings on Risecareer as ne that x
included in their plans, and by 1900, when Adolph was" er
point. When his brothers returned, Adolph was not
End Avenue in Chicago.
thirty-one years old, he was no longer living in the keyendacker household at East
to
Adolph died in 1938. On August 29 of that year, J.C. Leyendecker sent a telegram from New Rochelle
brother's funeral expenses, with the other half to be
a funeral home in Kansas City agreeing to pay half of his
Cemetery
‘borne by his nephew, Joseph A. Leyendecker. The Adolph Leyendecker family is buried in Calvary
in Kansas City, Missouri.

ef6
ROK
eS
We,
SOS)

acquired polio, infantile paralysis, and other such afflictions from birth or afterwards.
Funeral records indicate that Adolph suffered from paralysis, which was deemed to have
contributed to his death. Joe too was described as walking with a limp, and it is likely that
he had a related disease as a child.
Adolph had little to do with the family proper after about 1894. He went his own way,
settling in Kansas City, Missouri, where his career as a stained-glass artist must have had

J.C. LEYENDECKER
 a degree of success. He founded the Kansas City Stained Glass
Works Company in 1914 and worked there until 1925, when he
sold the firm. After the sale, he stayed on as a business advisor
to Paul H. Wolff, purchaser ofthe glass works. Adolph married
a French girl, Francine DiGeronde, with whom he had two
children, Genevieve Charlotte Leyendecker (1903-1929), who
poisoned herself, and Joseph Adolph Leyendecker (1908-1977),
also a suicide, this time by shotgun.
Ironically, despite all three brothers being professional
artists there is no record of any contact between Adolph and the
family whatsoever once he moved away. One can only speculate
about the reasons for the split. Maybe Adolph reacted to being
slighted by his parents during his youth, or perhaps he cut
ties with his family over the fact that both of his brothers were
homosexual. (Although there is no hard evidence of Frank’s
having had any long-term liaisons, his orientation was well
known to his contemporaries.)
Frank Leyendecker, a well-known illustrator, lived a tragic
life, wrestling with drug addictions and alcohol abuse and never
achieving the unrivaled success of Joe. Mary adored her two
baby brothers and ultimately devoted her life to their careers,
‘@
dying a lonely spinster. Both of Adolph’s children died without
Mc. Avoy. -Prewing. ‘ Co. issue, the last direct heirs of J.C. Leyendecker.
Chicaqo uU.6.G.
Pais poantyt iL

CGele phone Calumet 1064 The passion for artistic creation came to Joe at an early age, as he
later recounted in an interview for the Saturday Evening Post.’ “I
was eight at the time and was already covering schoolbooks with
Malt Marrow advertisement. 1889 rudely colored examples of my work. At home, I kept myself busy
with more pretentious paintings, which, for want of canvas, were done on oilcloth of the
common kitchen variety. Whatever their faults, these pictures lacked nothing in size. They
were all dutifully presented to long-suffering friends and relatives.”
At eleven years old, Joe designed a beer bottle label for the McAvoy Brewing Company,
which at this point was run by another of his mother’s uncles, Adam Ortseifen. Design
ideas came instinctively to Joe. He noticed that while other beers had confusing, un-
American-sounding names—Rheingold, Schlitz, Budweiser, Pabst—all but McAvoy had
well-designed, recognizable labels. It occurred to Joe even at this tender age that a good
brew was better remembered by illiterate immigrant consumers when it had a unique
graphic component. Ortseifen, however, declined to consider a design prepared by a child,
even a relative whose father worked in the business.
Some years later (1889), Ortseifen did hire his nephew to enhance the company image
by designing advertisements and labels. This time he had compelling reasons: Joe had
proven his facility with art and Ortseifen was trying to sell McAvoy Brewing Company

22 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 to an English-owned syndicate. Newly developed brewing |
technologies required major modernization of McAvoy’s facilities, McAvoy Brewing |
which stretched for blocks. Ortseifen was able to capitalize by
selling out at just the right time, before revitalizing McAvoy’s
equipment. In the process, family members, including the Peter
Leyendeckers, pocketed substantial amounts of money, permitting
them to afford lifestyles they had never imagined in Montabaur.
They were able to hire servants and lived quite comfortably
thereafter.
At fifteen, Leyendecker had realized his life’s pursuit was to
be an artist. “I felt I’d reached the saturation point inthe oilcloth =_
field, so I decided to find a job and gain some practical experience McAvoy Brewing Plant, Chicago, 1898
- in the profession ofbeing an artist. I still remember boarding an open cable car one
windy day (we were living in Chicago) with three large canvases wrapped in newspaper
and fighting my way through the crowded streets to an engraving house, where I showed
my samples. The boss inspected a stag at bay, a chariot race and a Biblical subject, with
amusement, but he did tell me to report for work.” Joe eagerly grasped at the opportunity
to apprentice atJ.Manz & Company, a Chicago engraving firm. At first, he was hired
as an unpaid errand boy, but he soon rose in stature to a position earning two dollars a
week. Manz prepared intricate drawings derived from Old Master paintings which they
used to accompany biblical tracts. Such reinterpretations proved a constantly demanding
regimen for a complacent, under-talented staff but a welcomed challenge for the gifted
apprentice. Joe illustrated numerous religious pamphlets and Bible editions, gaining
incredible experience in the process. In 1894, J.C. Leyendecker created sixty Bible
illustrations published by the Powers Brothers Company. This marked the official start of
his professional illustration career.
After that experience, Joe realized that a formal art education was necessary to further
develop his talents to their fullest. He enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, taking three
evening classes weekly. Meanwhile, he continued working atJ.Manz & Company, where
he rose to the position of Staff Illustrator.
Among Leyendecker’s instructors at the Art Institute were Chicago artist Enella
Benedict (1858-1942) and the famed John H. Vanderpoel (1857-1911). Professor
Vanderpoel, a Dutch-born artist and master draftsman, anatomist, and muralist, took a
special interest in guiding the wunderkind and recommended his aspiring young student
to his alma mater, Académie Julian. (Years later, Vanderpoel collected Joe’s works, which
now rest in the John H. Vanderpoel Art Association Collection.) Now desperately hoping to
become a full-fledged, working artist, Joe began to save his Manz earnings in the hopes of
furthering his studies in Paris.
While still in Chicago, in the spring of 1896, J.C. Leyendecker created a major impact
on the art world. He won first prize in a cover design contest for The Century magazine’s
August Midsummer Holiday Number. Another unknown, Maxfield Parrish, a twenty-
six-year-old artist-illustrator from the Cornish Colony, won second prize, despite having

J.C. LEYENDECKER 25)

g A PRNTED FROU ALUMINUM BY W. B. ORCUTT COMPANY, N.Y.”
 violated contest rules by using one extra color than was permitted. This was a milestone
for both Leyendecker and Parrish, as Century was acknowledged as “the best American
magazine.” Leyendecker’s winning piece was also reproduced in Les Maitre de l’Affiche
(Masters of the Poster), opposite graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Jane Avril at the
Moulin Rouge.
The prize was the publication of the winning image, and the noted Verlag von
Gerhard Kuhtmann issued it as an art print. Joe was widely acclaimed, his work instantly
recognized by cognoscenti in the United States and Europe. Large posters of his image
were plastered all over Parisian walls as advertisements, where they created quite a stir.
Art lovers known as “Drips” removed the crudely applied posters from masonry walls with
sponges drenched with water and added them to incubator collections. Because the Drips
were so active stealing Joe’s Century poster, a French publisher realized its marketability
- and printed a special edition. For the first time, pristine posters were printed specifically
to be sold. The Drips became referred to as “poster collectors.” It was the beginning of
graphic arts collecting.
Thus J.C. Leyendecker’s contribution to illustration brought advertising into the realm
ofhigh art, a viable and respected pursuit. It also gave his finances the boost they needed
to enable him to study at the Académie Julian.
For an often grueling and enervating five years, Joe had been working overtime to Maxfield Parrish. The Century “Midsummer
Issue.” August 1896. Printed magazine cover
create advertising posters and book designs, saving his earnings so that not just he but also
his brother Frank could study in Paris. Finally he had amassed enough money for the two
Leyendecker brothers to achieve their dream. They arrived in France on September 17,
1896, with Joe’s Century contest reputation having just preceded them.
Paris was an international magnet, attracting aspiring artists for technical training
and a requisite Bohemian lifestyle on the Left Bank or in Montmartre. Somewhat of an
oddity in a worldly Parisian environment, the well-washed American was immediately
sought after by French art galleries. At twenty-two years of age, Joe was already
considered by his peers to be an upcoming art figure alongside such luminaries as Jules
Chéret (1836-1933), Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
(1864-1901).
Frank, in his brother’s shadow, was more interested in the French urbane lifestyle of
bistros, cafes, and dens ofiniquity. He reached out to a shifty, absinthe-drinking group
ofrebellious artistic brigands. They caroused while chain-smoking Gauloises and used
seriously addictive drugs freely acquired in France and the United States at that time. Joe,
absorbed with his work, noticed little else.
Académie Julian had been established in 1868 as an alternative to the government
sanctioned Ecole des Beaux Arts. A new school, it attracted the most promising young
artists with superb faculties and the gift of freedom to explore. Joe openly welcomed
the genteel traditions of French academicians, and the brothers enjoyed the twists that
could be discovered from their studies of the Old Masters. At the Académie Julian the
Leyendeckers joined classes with faculty members Benjamin Constant (1845-1902), Opposite: The Century “Midsummer Issue.”
known for portraiture of English high society; Jules—Joseph LeFebvre (1836-1911), a August 1896. Printed magazine cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER 25
RIGHT: Paris Street Scene
(study). 1898. Watercolor,
18'/2 x 13". Unsigned

OPPOSITE: Woman with Parasol

(study). 1900. Watercolor and
ink on paper, 10 x 7". Unsigned

26 J.C. LEYENDECKER
J.C. LEYENDECKER 27
 diehard Royal Academician; Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921),
among the last French Academic stylists; and the Moravian artist
Alphonse Maria Mucha, founder of the Art Nouveau movement.
Mucha’s influence had already set styles on both sides of the
Atlantic. His floral arabesques, curved designs, and girls with
streaming hair were precursors to the modern movement in the
fine and decorative arts. After successes with posters, calendars,
decorative panels, and reproductions, he was considered the
quintessential commercial artist. Mucha relished the title.
Joe admired Mucha’s creative new approach, and Joe’s
Century poster interested Mucha, for it was as Art Nouveau as
Mucha’s own work. It bound them together, disciple and master.
Both artists were interested in creating images for replication
and selling their rights to publish—a new concept avoiding
exploitation and offering immediate gratification to the artist. The
River Seine Outside Paris. 1897. Oil on board, most important element was that their art could be enjoyed and
12 x 15". Signed and dated lower right
seen by hundreds of thousands rather than just a few.
The work of their fellow students influenced the young Americans as well. Ahead of
the Leyendeckers at the Académie, Adolphe Cassandre (1901-1968) was noted in France
for his powerful poster graphics and advertising art. Unknown in the United States, his

RIGHT: Sleeping Brother (study). 1897. Ink on

paper, 77/4 x 93/4". Unsigned

OPPOSITE, BELOW: Life Class with Standing

Nude. 1897. Pencil and white gouache on toned
paper, 8'/2 x 5°/s". Unsigned

28 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 work infatuated
Joe as a prime example of something to bring
home, if only in spirit. Marcel Duchamp, leader of
the Dadaist
and Surrealist movements, and Fernand Léger, a leader of
the Cubist movement, were graduates whose experiments in
new art forms and techniques were exhibited widely. Other
Académie Julian graduates included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice
Denis, Henri Matisse, Maurice Prendergast, and Edouard
Vuillard, and one can readily see pieces oftheir influence in the
works of both Joe and Frank Leyendecker. While in Paris, the
Leyendeckers also took some classes at the Académie Colarossi.
Outside of academy walls, Joe was further influenced by
Japanese prints in stalls along the River Seine as well as by
_other artists working in Paris at the time. Ofparticular interest
were the Impressionists, the practitioners of the Arts and
Crafts movement, and the most popular poster artist of
the era,
Count Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Leyendecker first saw Toulouse-Lautrec’s work at a Mauzi-
Joyant Gallery exhibition of lithographs and paintings. Son of
an aristocratic family, Toulouse-Lautrec gave up his noble life
at Celeyran to paint in the Bohemian quarters of Montmartre.
His chosen existence among prostitutes, musicians, and
casino touts guided his graphic talents toward reflecting
on his experiences visually. Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters
attracted significant attention and quick fame and evolved ABOVE: Joe and Frank in their Paris studio, 1896
into profitable outlets: poster advertisements, shop flyers, menus, and some art prints. It
was at the time an explosive concept for an artist to eschew “fine art” and instead create
specifically for commercial use. Powerfully imaginative, almost graffiti-like, Toulouse-
Lautrec’s work, especially his painted advertisements for the Moulin Rouge nightclub,
were seen everywhere and gravitated into collections—a lesson not lost on the young
American.
Jules Chéret, lithographer-artist, was perhaps the first major force in advertising art.
“The Master of Poster Art,” Chéret had created the first advertising poster for the Moulin
Rouge club’s opening. Chéret had received the Legion of Honor in 1890 for “the use of
art in advertising,” and he was idolized by the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec, Mucha, and J.C.
_ Leyendecker. While Toulouse-Lautrec took his keynote from Chéret’s paintings of lesbian
haunts and smoky bistros, Mucha immortalized Sarah Bernhardt and her Théatre de la
Renaissance. All the while, Joe Leyendecker absorbed everything, noting to himself that
posters were transcending their original purpose as advertisements into coveted graphic
artworks. Nothing like this was happening back home.

To an average audience, Alphonse Mucha and J.C. Leyendecker appeared stylistically quite
similar. The artistic process for each of these artists intrigued the other. Additionally, the

J.C. LEYENDECKER 29
 European sought information from the American on any new developing techniques which
could enhance color and therefore the depiction of light.
In 1897, Leyendecker held his first exhibition at the Salon du Champs de Mars, while
Mucha had his first solo show at the Galerie La Bodiniere. In both shows, the artists’
studies and printed posters were hung alongside the originals. Mucha proudly invited his
creative friend Paul Gauguin to visit both his and Leyendecker’s exhibitions.
Gauguin had returned to France from a sojourn in Tahiti and his self-imposed quest
to capture innocence on canvas. Delighting in newly invented printing processes and
techniques, he fancied technologies which could give artists more freedom. Mucha
had befriended him and offered the loan of a studio and money. He told Gauguin of
Leyendecker’s youthful stabs at developing his own pictorial vocabulary. Gauguin reacted
negatively to his colleagues’ shows, however, disdaining them as “academic.” While he
admired Mucha and Leyendecker for their common goal to deliver art to the people, he
opposed the notion of paintings exhibited with accompanying studies and posters.
Clearly Gauguin’s attitude was colored by his experiences with La Revue Blanche, an
‘THE INLAND PRINTER COMPANY, CHICAGO AND NEW YORK,
eclectic art review. Gauguin had written an article for the magazine entitled “Noa Noa,”
| assuming his works would be reproduced to illustrate the text, but the publisher, perhaps
|

Toland Printer
| due to a lack of space, ignored Gauguin’s paintings. Distraught and embittered, Gauguin
|
determined that publishing was dangerous to an artist’s career and disparaged those
artists who allowed their works to be published. He distanced himself from Mucha and
Leyendecker, suggesting, “They have no control over their publishers, and publishers
dojust what they want in any case, always at the artist’s expense. Who are such people to
tolerate this?” From that time forth, Gauguin had no use for illustrators.
That same year, 1897, Leyendecker was commissioned to paint an advertising poster
for a Chap Book published by Stone & Kimball—Hebert S. Stone & Company, again
placing his art into the public stratosphere. Distributed on the street by “Chap Men,”
the name “Chap Book” was derived from sixteenth-century pamphlets known as “cheap
books.” These early underground publications featured avant-garde writers and played
a significant role in expanding literacy and knowledge of the arts. Leyendecker’s Woman
with Cat was emblazoned on walls along the Champs d’Elysée and Boulevard St. Michel. It
immediately followed a Chap Book cover and poster painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, again a
flattering event for the aspiring and ambitious young artist.
J.C. Leyendecker realized what he could now bring home to America. Having been
exposed to pedants, poets, sycophants, and coffeehouse philosophers, he wished to have
a career just like those of Chéret, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mucha. There was no need to
remain in Europe any longer. He wanted desperately to get to work.
ABOVE, FROM TOP: The Inland Printer. April 1897. After Joe’s exhibition at the Salon du Champs de Mars closed, the Leyendecker
Printed magazine cover. The Inland Printer. 1897.
Poster for April 1897 issue
brothers left Paris for Chicago. While Frank returned home with serious addictions and a
OPPOSITE, FROM TOP: The Inland Printer (study).
blurred image ofthe future, Joe came back with a drive for success, an understanding of
1897. Charcoal and chalk on paper, 5 x 4". The what sold, and a clear vision of how to achieve it. Around this time the Curtis Publishing
Inland Printer. July 1897. Printed magazine
cover. Inland Printer advertisement. July 1897
Company acquired The Saturday Evening Post; Joe was among the first artists to contribute,
with a series ofillustrations for a “Famous Poems” page. Within months, he was hired for

30 J.C. LEYENDECKER
the most coveted commission, a cover for the nation’s most popular magazine. “My first
Post cover appeared May 20, 1899,” he later recalled. “There was nothing distinctive in the
appearance of the first few numbers; it was not until George Horace Lorimer became the
editor that color was introduced and the cover became a design complete in itself.”* This
single project assured his position as the rising star ofillustration.
Joe and Frank settled into a rented apartment in Hyde Park and a studio in the Fine
Arts Building, 410 South Michigan Avenue. Touted as the “Chicago Center for Creativity,”
it was an important address for the arts. Isadora Duncan was dancing in a theater on the
ground floor, L. Frank Baum was writing The Wizard of Oz upstairs, Frank Lloyd Wright
settled his burgeoning architectural practice in a studio suite, and The Dial, a noted
intellectual magazine, was being published from the building as well. The Leyendeckers’
tenth-floor studio was a social magnet for emerging artists, some seeking Joe’s early fame
to rub off on them.
The American art world, not surprisingly, had changed dramatically in the
Leyendeckers’ absence. Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithographs and posters were being
distributed internationally and acclaimed as the “basis for modern graphic arts and
commercial art.” After the poster fad hit America, Chap Books advertised posters by
J.C. Leyendecker, Will Bradley, and Edward Penfield. Simultaneously, the influence of
Japanese printmaking captivated Northeastern art colonies at Cornish, Old Lyme, and
Ogunquit. Newly developed woodcut techniques permitted more artists to make forays
into graphic arts. Joseph Bowles’s journal, Modern Art, promoted posters and proved
effective at garnering mail orders for books and art prints as well, impressing the art
world. Illustration art was now everywhere. Joe Leyendecker took especial note.
While in Paris, J.C. Leyendecker had been awarded a multiple commission to prepare
twelve covers for The Inland Printer, an imaginative and influential American magazine for
the printing trade. He was hired after having brazenly sent his portfolio—garnished with
awards from French art academies coupled with a catalogue from his Salon du Champs de
Mar exhibition, potent imprimaturs from the art capital of the world—to the great artist-
illustrator Will Bradley, a frequent and celebrated Inland Printer contributor. That Bradley
himself had selected him was a great honor in itself.
The success of J.C. Leyendecker’s Inland Printer magazine covers engendered an
exhibition at Chicago’s New York Life Building. Again Leyendecker hung original
paintings next to the printed magazine covers, creating perhaps the first American
exhibition to juxtapose studies and replication examples to the original art—exactly
_ what Gauguin despised. The Leyendecker exhibition for the Inland Printer covers was yet
another powerful endorsement and affirmation of illustration art. Young artists had an
epiphany of sorts when they saw that it was possible to create an image one day that the
next day, thousands could appreciate.
eee eee CL ERLEL
ES CREASE SE CELSLTERS CERT EXLELSES Eee
sR eeera|
It was not difficult to conclude from the exhibition that paintings could be used
identically as a format for posters, magazine covers, full-page advertisements, and Price Twenty Cents
billboards. In fact, J.C. Leyendecker had already realized that a single illustration could be
applied to many commercial uses, enhancing its value in the marketplace. He was further

J.C. LEYENDECKER 3|
 AUGUSTA MARY LEYENDECKER
Sister

yendecker sacrificed her life to her two beloved and

talented brothers; as far as is known, she had no other personal
relationships. She never married and lived an austere, convent-like
existence after her family passed on, until her death in 1957.
In the early days iin Chicago, after Adolph left the nest, Mary
‘esided with Frank, Joe, their parents, and a servant girl. In New
she lived with Joe and Frank, caring for them when they
eturned from Danis, and then later, in 1905 after Elizabeth died,

anager
ae
| both Frank oe Joe. This FEE Mes seems to have
St ted Mary
b until 1916, when Charles Beach moved in.
1 avid promoter of both her brothers’ work, Mary actually
excuses for Frank's delinquencies, often gaining more time
aed ; Mary Leyendecker, far left, at the presentation
or him to perform; in the process she relinquished Joe totally of Leyendecker's City of Huguenots painting
Beach’s hands while she cared for Frank’s far greater needs, _ te the Historical Association of New Rochelle,
EPs ; b April 1953. Artist Molly Guion is at far right.
1923, after years
of trying to make an uncomfortable situation
work, there was a blowup between Frank and Charles Beach. Mary
lef the next day and moved into the Martha Washington Hotel for Women in New York, where she lived
modestly for the next thirty-four years.
After Joe passed away in 1951, Mary inherited a tidy sum of money, equivalent to approximately $450,000
n 2007 dollars. With previous debt and no prospect for future income, however, she felt financially insecure
and apprehensive regarding the future. Consequently, she did not order a footstone for Joe's grave until
three years after his death. It was only after Earl Rowland, a fan of J.C. Leyendecker’s artworks, wrote on
vember 30, 1953, informing her of his intention to raise money for a grave marker—offering to replicate
Frank's but add Joe’s monogram-like signature—that she turned her attention to the matter. A letter was sent
ayy
SUI
Dee
(Ci
: to Rowland stating, “arrangements have already been made for the placing of a marker at the grave of Joseph GW
yx
yy
}
ue Leyendecker... by Miss Mary A. Leyendecker.” A footstone was made to match the other family markers
pone

: and placed on J.C. Leyendecker’s grave in 1954.

Ea Rowland, a “commercial art buff,” wrote again to Mary Leyendecker, this time requesting that she donate
_ J.C. Leyendecker paintings to his museum, the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Museum, now called the
_ Haggin Museum, in California. Mary was eighty years old at the time, and still residing at the Martha Washington
Hotel, on a limited budget. Rowland began a correspondence regarding her brother's artworks, and according
 Wy

SN

to Museum Director Tod Ruhstaller, in his attempt to get at least one painting, “arranged for his son in New Se
York, to take Mary out for dinners and to host her for holiday meals.” Rowland also promised to arrange for the es
publication of a book on her brother and his art. His attempts to win Mary over seem to have worked as planned, =
as she donated all of the approximately sixty remaining paintings, memorabilia, and studies in her possession. In a
fact, she also changed her will, dated May 5, 1958, to leave half her estate to Rowland’s museum, “this bequest in 3)
memory of my deceased brother, Joseph C. Leyendecker...to be used either toward the expense of publication Se
of a manuscript on the life and work of my said brother, currently called “Leyendecker—Painter to a People,” or x
that it be used otherwise for the perpetuation of my brother's art work as shall be determined by Earl Rowland.” omy
(The balance was left to the “care and maintenance of the lot in The Woodlawn Cemetery.”) While still bitter 7
that Joe had forsaken her and Frank for Charles Beach, Mary remained loyal to Joe’s artistic legacy. ye)
Fifty years later, still no book. It is presumed that “perpetuation” of the work was completed. An exhibition | =
of Augusta Mary Leyendecker’s gift of paintings toured several museums across the United States beginning es
in 2006 under the title “U.C. Leyendecker, America’s ‘Other’ Illustrator.” my

aware that he could gain fame and fortune while satisfying a client’s needs in this manner.
Having already been lavished with awards, solo exhibitions, and international recognition,
Joe began actively to pursue commissions in advertising. Assignments flowed into his
studio like a river. He quickly determined that the technological advances in printing,
emerging industries, and the public’s new admiration for illustration art would allow
him to expand his market throughout the country. Unfortunately, projects of national
significance were not to be found in Chicago.
In 1900, the Leyendecker brothers, along with their sister, Mary, moved to New York
City—Mecca ofthe art world, center of international commerce, and hub of the up-and-
coming advertising industry. The Leyendeckers took full advantage of all the city had to
offer. Through Parisian contacts, the brothers were directed to a rather large rental studio
with a modest rent at 7 East 32nd Street. They also rented a four-story, Federalist-period
brick townhouse in nearby Washington Square. Augusta Mary Leyendecker was pleased
that the whole townhouse was for them alone.
Uptown, their neighbors were foreign artists and their studio was reminiscent of Hf N EW ROCHELLE
European lofts, while the Square was a potpourri ofnative eccentrics. Joe recalled i} THE CITY OF Tae H
Henry James’s novel Washington Square (1881), lent to him by a Parisian classmate, and felt
privileged to have found their townhouse abode and a suitable studio. Both Joe and Frank
enjoyed the pace and diversity of New York, while Mary cooked, cleaned, and organized New Rochelle: The City of the Huguenots. 1938.
her brothers’ lives in lieu of pursuing a career of her own. Printed brochure cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER 5S
 LUE RS ATED Wee
a no 2 SEPTEMBER 6 1902 PRICE TEN CENTS
|

ABOVE: F.X. Leyendecker. Collier's cover.

September 6, 1902. Printed magazine cover

RIGHT: F.X. Leyendecker. The Blacksmith. 1902.

Gouache on illustration board, 18'/2 x 15". Signed
lower left

During their French sojourn, the brothers had enjoyed promenading along the River
Seine, exploring and finding interesting cafes and antique shops. In New York, they
walked around Washington Square, ogling locals who gathered by the central fountain,
smelling foods on push carts, and watching jugglers and magicians touting their talents.
Greenwich Village surrounded them, a complete joy for Joe though a danger for Frank,
with his acquired weaknesses. The two brothers and sister were idyllically happy, for a
time. They had more than adequate accommodations, a studio with northern light in a
neighborhood with other artists, commissions from top-notch commercial clients, and,
soon, covers for the most popular magazines.

34 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 re Sew
THE HOUSE OF KUPPENHEIMER
CHTOAGED, U.S

ABOVE: House of Kuppenheimer advertisement.

Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, September
14, 1912

LEFT: F.X. Leyendecker. Man Stoking Furnace.

1920. Oil on canvas, 32 x 28". Signed lower left.
Reproduced: Collier’s, March 20, 1920, cover

F.X. Leyendecker quickly received the first ofhis Collier's cover assignments, a
commission that would continue on a regular basis for the next fifteen years and
sporadically thereafter, providing him with a steady income. As always Joe found even
more success: having already worked for The Saturday Evening Post while back in Chicago,
he now negotiated assignments for the publication on a long-term basis. He would paint
Post covers for decades, eventually completing more than three hundred compelling and
admired images and becoming the most popular artist for the most popular magazine.
Joe, and to a lesser degree Frank as well, found much in the way of corporate work
in New York. One ofthe long-term clients shared by the brothers was B. Kuppenheimer
& Co., a prominent men’s clothier. Joe and Frank sometimes worked as a team on the
Kuppenheimer advertisements, in which case J.C. was always the leader. He would come
up with the concept, and then both brothers would go from canvas to canvas and one
assignment to another, each participating to a lesser or a greater degree. While Joe worked
quickly and competently, Frank, apparently weakened by his addiction problems, could

J.C. LEYENDECKER 39
 not always be counted upon to bring a commission to fruition. He dallied and sometimes
lost interest halfway through, more compelled to use heroin or alcohol than to finish his
work. In order to avoid missing deadlines and the subsequent very real possibility of their
joint termination, Joe was forced to complete many of Frank’s works.
For the Leyendecker brothers, painting young males was a priority interest, so they
focused on male characters in their advertising work. Neighboring artists shared models
with the brothers, which meant a seemingly endless train of attractive Greenwich Village
lads parading through their chilly studio in the buff. One momentous day in 1903, a
particularly striking young man appeared at their door, having just arrived in the United
States from Europe, where he had lived for the past year. His name was Charles A. Beach,
and Frank immediately hired him in Joe’s absence. When Joe returned, he could not
believe his eyes: his dreams had been realized. Frank graciously allowed his brother the
use of
his model, and Joe and Charles Beach were inseparable thereafter, both personally
and professionally, for forty-eight years. Joe was twenty-nine and Charles seventeen years
old when they first met.
Joe Leyendecker was physically unimpressive—skinny, about five feet, six inches tall,
with deep-set eyes, a swarthy complexion, pursed lips, wispy hair, and no sideburns. He
was also, however, quite sophisticated, with a soigné no doubt acquired in Parisian art
galleries, and well dressed, even meticulous in his attire. Charles Beach was his direct
opposite. He stood about six feet, two inches tall and had an Adonis-like figure with
massive biceps, narrow waist, and flat stomach. Charles put on affectations peculiar
for someone from Ontario, Canada, and in later years dressed outrageously, frequently
carrying a walking stick and wearing an overcoat laden with Persian lamb collars,
cuffs, and hem trim. Clever but uneducated, he offered no challenges intellectually
and was usually silent while modeling for Leyendecker, though always looking quite
beautiful. Charles moved into a studio apartment on West 31st Street, one block from the
Leyendeckers’ studio.
After their mother’s death in 1905, Joe, Frank, and Mary moved from Washington
Square to a rental house on Pelham Road in New Rochelle, some sixteen miles from
midtown Manhattan. Soon thereafter, their father, Peter, moved in as well. Ina bold move,
in 1910 Joe and Frank also moved to a larger, luxuriant new studio in Ashforth & Duryee’s
newly built Bryant Park Studio Building, later known as the Beaux Arts Building. Its 40th
Street and Sixth Avenue location made it especially convenient, as many publishers and
advertising agencies had offices at nearby Madison Square Park.
The main studio room had twenty-two-foot-high ceilings, a large balcony overlooking
Bryant Park, several smaller rooms, and storage areas. Studio decor in the opulent
workspace included Renaissance sideboards, Louis XV chairs, tapestries, oriental rugs,
and oversized foreboding Italian Baroque side tables, all acquired during their stay in
Paris. On virtually all horizontal surfaces there were silver trays loaded with squeezed,
empty paint tubes. Recalling his childhood in Montabaur, Joe hung suits of armor on
the door, one on the hallway side and the other inside. The studio was staffed by Charles
Beach, who had moved from his small efficiency unit into a side bedroom, and a Filipino

36 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 CHARLES A. BEACH (1886-1952)
Model and Life Partner

Norman Rockwell described Charles Beach as: “tall, powerfully built, and
extraordinarily handsome—looked like an athlete from one of the Ivy League
colleges. He spoke with a clipped British accent and was always beautifully
_ dressed. His manners were polished and impeccable..."* He was Joseph
Leyendecker’s ideal man.
Charles was also compliant and understanding of Joe’s worldly desires
and emotional needs. And for his part, Joe enjoyed the irony of painting
Charles as a prototype, the classic all-American male.
After deferentially living with Frank and Mary for two decades, Beach
recognized newfound strengths. Again, according to Rockwell, “Little by
little, day by day, he insinuated himself into Joe’s life...Beach hired the
Beach as portrayed in Man with Hands in
models, bought the art supplies, rented the costumes, paid the gardeners _p. -kets, Arrow Collar advertisement. Date
and servants.” By 1923, he had completely taken over Joe’s business affairs. unknown
Next, he wrestled household control from Mary, and startled Frank by
refusing his requests for menial help, openly insulting him in front of guests. Frank, unable to defend himself,
‘was soon diminished by the constantly aggressive posture. Thereafter, every aspect of Joe's life, including
painting, was under Beach’s control. Joe had been teaching Charles to assist him by preparing canvas
stretchers, and other basic art tasks. Over time, this encouraged Beach to feel he was an equal partner in the
creativity as well as with the household. Joe was amused by the concept, although it increasingly upset his
siblings, friends, and clients.
Charles Beach was not only Joe’s idea of the perfect man. Leyendecker’s advertisements for Arrow
Collars and Arrow Shirts made him the paradigm for a nation. He was, in fact, the first American “culture
“hero.” Few, if any fans ever realized that their lofty ideal man was not only a homosexual but a kept man, the
live-in lover of the famed artist who thrust himself into such an exalted status.
Charles Beach followed J.C. Leyendecker in death as he did in life. He passed away a year after Joe, in
1952.

* Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1960), pp. 197-98.

J.C, LEYENDECKER
 houseboy who presented himselfin full livery, as per Beach’s orders. Visitors’ arrivals
were enhanced by major domo announcements.
The Beaux Arts Building, aside from having artist studios, also housed apartments
for actors and other creative types. All in all, it was a grand place for an artist—in fact
two artists—in which to work. Certainly, the Leyendecker brothers were exceedingly
comfortable in this new studio, though Frank was increasingly horrified at the more than
obvious shows of affection between Joe and Charles Beach.
Although both brothers ostensibly commuted from their New Rochelle home, Joe
was happier spending nights in the city with Beach and frequenting the local bars and
lounges with him and the many friends they shared. Joe and Charles dined frequently
at Longley’s, a popular Sardi’s-like steak joint that was open all night for the theater
crowd, and made fast friends with five or six waiters. One of them was Brian Donlevy
(1901-1972), destined for stardom on the silver screen. Donlevy had the image
Leyendecker sought as a counterpart to Beach and his affected mannerisms: a rigid
ABOVE: Thanksgiving (Doughboy Walking with military-like demeanor combined with raw toughness. Joe soon hired him as a model.
Turkey). 1918. Oil on canvas, 28 x 21". Mono-
grammed lower right. Reproduced: Saturday
Donlevy appeared in a number of Arrow Collar advertisements, sometimes alongside
Evening Post, November 30, 1918 Beach but never supplanting him in any way.
BELOW: Neil Hamilton with Leyendecker oil Another famous movie star, Neil Hamilton (1899-1984), also modeled for Joe early
painting, 1920s
in his career. Hamilton would eventually work with D.W. Griffith in The White Rose
(1923), appear as Tarzan the Ape Man (1934) and as Police
Commissioner Gordon in the Batman television series of
the 1960s, and ultimately act for virtually every studio in
Hollywood, but in 1917 he was an unemployed actor hanging
around movie studio lots in Fort Lee, New Jersey, when a
particularly handsome man walked by. A fellow standing next
~ to him muttered, “Did you notice that guy who that just went
out, do you know who he is?” It was the Arrow Collar Man.
Nearly speechless, Hamilton drew up the strength to say, “I'd
actually SEEN him in person.”°
Never having modeled previously but yet to receive any
movie roles, Hamilton garnered from this chance encounter
inspiration regarding the means to get some badly needed
cash. He made his way to Joe’s Beaux Arts Building studio
and offered himself as a model. Hamilton described the
encounter: “My knock was answered by a butler in full
uniform. ... I was ushered into the great man’s presence. His
studio looked like a somewhat smaller Grand Central Station.
He himself was a fairly small person, but intensely attractive,
as he gave his FULL attention to every word |uttered.”
Leyendecker hired Hamilton for six dollars per day and
threw in lunch as well. He used him in several Arrow Collar
advertisements and Saturday Evening Post covers. Later Joe

38 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE LEFT: The Mt. Tom
introduced him to other artists to help him find additional modeling work; Hamilton estate, c. 1995. Mary and Frank pose in Joe’s Mt.
Tom studio, 1915. Charles Beach and dogs in the
posed for Norman Rockwell, Howard Chandler Christy, James Montgomery Flagg, and for
living room at Mt. Tom, 1919; the original painting
Frank Leyendecker, too. As Hamilton himself said, “Man alive—I had made it made it in for Ridolfo (left) and a portrait of Frank and
Joe (right) grace the walls. The staircase at Mt.
capital letters—MADE!!!”
Tom, 1919. When the photograph of Beach was
Some years later, in the mid-1920s, Neil Hamilton and his wife dined with Joe originally reproduced in Country Life magazine,
Charles was not identified, but the caption
Leyendecker. After dinner, Joe invited the couple back to his studio. Charles Beach was
read, in part, “It is evident that in this home
asked to fetch an original painting of a Post cover (November 30, 1918) for which Neil man’s best friend is appreciated at his true
worth”—perhaps a subtle nod to his and Joe’s
modeled. Hamilton and his wife were thrilled at its sight. He offered to purchase it from
relationship.
Joe, who refused, explaining that he never sold his paintings. Realizing their residual
future uses, Joe insisted upon retaining physical control of all his images; and he sold
only a one-time use of each to the Post, insisting the painting be returned to him after
the picture’s publication. After dinner, however, Joe sent the painting to the Hamiltons

J.C. LEYENDECKER 39
 FRANK XAVIER LEYENDECKER (1879-1924)
Illustrator and Brotherr

Sometimes confused by collectors, F.X., or Frank, and J.C. Leyendecker had

practically identical training, similar styles to the untrained eye, and were
both celebrated talents. They even looked alike. Like Joe, Frank Leyendecker
was short and slight of build, with an unnaturally sallow complexion, and a
weak jaw. Both shared nearly exact profiles, though Frank had cruder, more
rounded features and fuller lips than his brother. The fourth child in a German
household, where primogeniture reigned still-an Old World legacy—Frank
was doomed not to lead the pack. With oldest brother Adolph out of the
picture, Joe was considered the favorite child. Frank viewed Joe’s early
academic and commercial successes as signs of his own unworthiness.
Sympathetic, Joe tried to ameliorate his baby brother's situation but
Portrait
OfF.X.Leyendecker succeeded only in further damaging his self-confidence. Ultimately, this
(study). 1897. Oil on canvas, 15'/2 x
12/0", Unsigned affected Frank's social relationships, even his drive and stamina.
Frank got off to a flying start upon the brothers’ arrival in New York. For
six years beginning in 1900, Collier's commissioned Frank for twenty-six covers, while Joe painted fewer than
half that many. Other clients did not always like Frank's work as much, perhaps because he often chose to
satisfy his own artistic desires at the expense of a client's specific needs. One of his models, Neil Hamilton,
provided a glimpse of Frank’s attitude toward clients. After posing for three days for an Interwoven Socks
ad, Hamilton was asked by Frank for his opinion of the finished picture. At first he was afraid to criticize, but
finally said he thought the feet were huge. “You see it—you really see it?” Frank asked. “I get a fat sum of
money from the manufacturer of these stockings, but | despise myself for doing them, although | HAVE to do
them, so | take out my spite on the art critics and those who won't let me paint anything I'd like to paint, such
as illustrations for a story.” One can see other examples of inexplicable “errors” in Frank’s advertisements,
such as putting extremely short trousers on a figure, inserted to show the world
the indignities he suffered from having to accept commercial commissions.
After his early Collier’s cover triumphs, Frank fell under the overwhelming
shadow of his prolific, more able older brother. He became known as “The
Lesser Leyendecker”; the title stuck, tainting him professionally. Yet Collier's
covers painted by Frank Leyendecker are considered as being among the most
important magazine illustrations.
As his brother's star continued to rise, Frank grew more depressed and less
able to perform. He lost commissions and clients to younger illustrators with

F.X. Leyendecker, 1914

 new ideas and techniques. Sparse commissions during his last few
years did not generate enough income to provide for himself, and he
came to rely more and more on his brother's largesse. Between 1912
and 1919, he did only six magazine covers and no other work, a sad
comment on this creative genius’s disintegrating reputation. As their
careers careened on divergent paths, Frank increasingly resented
Joe's help. Joe sometimes hired Frank to finish his own paintings, a
well-meaning but ultimately hurtful gesture. F.X. Leyendecker’s last
magazine cover, for Life, was published October 4, 1923.
After the blowup with Charles Beach in 1923, Frank moved into
an efficiency unit next to Norman Rockwell’s New Rochelle studio on
Lord Kitchener Road, bringing with him an oversized Italian Baroque
bed, his last prized possession from Europe.* With nothing else left, no
place in the fraternal relationship, a broken spirit, and overshadowed Fic Leyendacher, Chavrolet Review: Strength
by Joe’s successes, Frank lapsed further into his sad indulgences. He & Service. Oil on canvas, 35 x 28”. Signed
took even greater amounts of drugs, smoked and drank more heavily, — ees
and near the end, sought psychiatric help. Rockwell claims to have on
several occasions accompanied F-.X. to his analyst in the attempt to thwart his further decline.
A year after he moved out, Frank Xavier Leyendecker was dead. He passed away near midnight on Good
Friday, April 18, 1924, at the age of forty-five. According to the order for internment, the cause of death was
a cerebral hemorrhage. Some have claimed it was really due to a broken heart after slowly losing his brother;
others blamed the drugs that dissipated his health; still others implied suicide.
A mysterious figure in life, Frank remained so after death. His page-one, April 19, 1924, obituary claims,
“One of the foremost artists and illustrators of this country died in this city last night at midnight, when Frank
X. Leyendecker passed away at his home on Mt. Tom Road.”* In reality, of course, Frank had moved from that
house a year earlier. Joe, however, still living there with Charles Beach, did not want the world to know that.
On December 20, 1924, the Art Association of New Rochelle held a Memorial Exhibition of Frank X.
Leyendecker’s artworks at the Public Library. Mary Leyendecker, Coles Phillips, Norman Rockwell, Mrs.
Robert Collier, and the publishers of Collier's, Life, McClure’s, Vogue, and Vanity Fair made loans of originals
and prints. He was eulogized as having given “fidelity to tradition and no less to suavity and grace and authority
of method that he raised the standard of commercial art to a place never before occupied, as a legitimate
adjunct to what we know as true art, that is, enduring art.” The exhibition drew unabated crowds.
‘If he had not worked in the shadow of his brother, F.X. Leyendecker might have been recognized as
one of the most successful artists of the Golden Age—a superstar. Few other illustrators had such notable
commissions from the most important publications.

*Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1960), p. 203.
t“Noted Illustrator Dies,” The Standard-Star (New Rochelle), p. 1.
 at their hotel. They could hardly believe the wonderful gift and hung it over their home
fireplace mantel. Neil reported that his artist friends were always “transfixed” when
they saw it. Beach commented later that this was one of only two Post cover paintings that
Leyendecker had ever given away.
In 1914 J.C. Leyendecker and family moved from the rental house on Pelham Road
into a fourteen-room house that Joe had designed and built on a nine-acre estate in
New Rochelle. Joe named the street Mount Tom Road, an Americanized version ofhis
birthplace, Montabaur. Architect Louis Rochet Metcalfe (1873-1946), a New Yorker
whom Joe had met in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, used his entire range of European
training to satisfy the array of styles demanded by Charles Beach for “their” house.
(Beach took credit for getting the house built, having acted as Clerk of the Works for
Metcalfe.) Deemed a “mansion” by Norman Rockwell, the house was an agglomeration
of Elizabethan exteriors, a French mansard roof, Georgian details, and quasi-French
The Flapper Provincial elements. A winding footpath graced by low piers led up a sharp slope to the
Leyendecker residence. Belgian cobblestones defined a driveway and parking area used
ABOVE: F.X. Leyendecker. Life cover. February exclusively for Joe’s Pierce Arrow roadster and a chauffer-driven Lincoln limousine. A
22, 1922. Printed magazine cover
small archway into the gardens was hidden behind the long, low building facade. Inside,
OPPOSITE: F.X. Leyendecker. The Flapper. 1922.
Arts and Crafts windows, Gothic Revival fireplaces, chandeliers of dubious styles, anda
Oil on canvas, 29 x 27". Signed lower right
local hardware store stair railing with skinny balusters completed this Americana delight.
An eccentric interpretation of incompatible styles and scale, the Mount Tom house is
nevertheless charming for its eclecticism.
Joe’s large private suite overlooked the splendid gardens. He loved their formality, with
their classical order echoing the Renaissance, and enjoyed working in them in his spare
time. Gaggles of geese, ducks, chickens, and turkeys provided an informal counterpoint to
the gardens. There was also a koi fishpond and small gazebo reached by a footbridge over a
miniature waterfall.
The house included, at the extreme right-hand end, a studio for Frank. After many
years of torturous studio sharing, rife with uncomfortable compromise, Joe hoped
separate workplaces would ameliorate their relationship and alleviate Frank’s personal
addictions. Joe envisaged that some day he might work at home as well, and so space was
created for another studio at the left-hand end for potential future use. For the time-
being, however, he continued to commute to the 40th Street studio—and to Charles.
Beach was satisfied, and so apparently was Frank. He enjoyed working at his lavish studio
with northern light, alcove dressing rooms for models, private bathroom, and balcony for
flexible poses and views of models from a distance or from below.
In 1916, Peter Leyendecker died, and Charles Beach moved into the house on Mount
Tom Road. Finally Joe and Charles were able to share quarters without pretense. Now
Joe and Beach, Frank and Mary, a new housekeeper, and two Filipino houseboys all
lived together, on Mount Tom Road. Joe and Charles still commuted daily to the New York
City studio.
Charles’s move to Mount Tom Road directly pitted him against Frank and Mary,
putting them on a collision course. Beach felt the house and Joe belonged to him, while

42 J.C. LEYENDECKER
J.C. LEYENDECKER 43
 Frank found it difficult to satisfy his own needs while wrangling with Charles over
everything and nothing. According to Norman Rockwell, Beach had “corrupted Joe’s
relationship with his brother and sister . . . fouling it so slowly that Joe didn’t realize what
was happening, though if he had I doubt he could have stopped it, his dependency on
Beach ran so deep.”* Frank and Beach grew increasingly antagonistic toward each other,
while Mary grew angrier with Joe. The living situation was becoming intolerable. The
ongoing dispute between Charles Beach and Frank Leyendecker culminated in 1923
with Mary spitting in Beach’s face. Mary and brother Frank moved out to residences of
their own.

In the aftermath of World War I, the 1920s roared into North America and especially to
New York. The nation needed revelry. Societal and cultural upheavals became the norm,
the economy boomed, and increased advertising spread new technology to the masses.
Flappers came into vogue with Frank’s cover for Life entitled The Flapper (February 2,
1922). Meanwhile, Joe’s characterizations of his profligate peer group became the
personification ofadecade of decadence.
With the end of the war, the Beaux Arts Building started to attract more ordinary folk,
as compared with the previous rarified residents. It was considered déclassé for a famous
artist to continue working in what had become a middle-class apartment building. In 1919,
Joe moved his studio again, fourteen blocks north to 151 West 54th Street, an up-and-
coming “artists zone.”
The new studio was in a neighborhood with magnetic ambience. The location drew
a crazy mix of artists, writers, thespians, gangsters, socialites, gays, and lesbians.
Leyendecker chose the building at the suggestion of Texas Guinan (1884-1933), one of
the tenants. Leyendecker had met Guinan back in 1907, while he was sitting on a bench
with Charles Beach in Washington Square taking in the harvest moon and exotic Village
sights. By this time, J.C. Leyendecker was already known throughout the country. Texas
introduced herself, mentioning that she had recently moved onto the Square from Waco,
Texas, and just landed a job as a chorus girl. Texas and Joe’s similar backgrounds and
mutual goals made for a lasting friendship. Like the Leyendeckers, her people were
immigrants, and she had moved from the Midwest to seek fame and fortune in the big city.
While not a lesbian, Texas’s reasons for choosing to live in an urban incubator for the arts
and sexually tolerant cultures paralleled Joe’s own.
Years later, Texas Guinan gained fame as a saloonkeeper, entrepreneur, and actress,
even engendering several movies about her life.’ She opened a speakeasy called the Club
Intime in the basement of
the West 54th Street building to satisfy a public need during
Prohibition. The Club Intime was an immediate hit, and Texas Guinan became the
undisputed queen ofthe nightclub scene. Texas greeted guests with the words, “Hello,
Sucker”—one of several phrases she coined and popularized—and politely proceeded to
Man and Woman Dancing. 1923. Oil on relieve them oftheir cash.
canvas, 39°/s x 26s". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
advertisement featuring models Phyllis Frederic
To hide it from raids, Texas kept the bar on the building’s top floor, a situation of which
and Brian Donlevy Leyendecker took full advantage, as Norman Rockwell related: “Texas had her speakeasy

44 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 in the basement, but the bar was hidden from view on an upper floor. Leyendecker’s studio
was in-between. On occasions when Rockwell visited with Joe and Beach, Joe always
offered Norman a drink. Rockwell noted that there was an open dumbwaiter, which
passed from the bar, through Joe’s studio to the speakeasy in the basement. Pulling ropes
to move it from the bar on an upper floor to the speakeasy operated the dumbwaiter. It
passed through many studios, but in Joe’s alone, it was open exposing it to the studio
space. Joe would take drink orders and then await until the correct order was passing
through the studio on its way to a disappointed customer, while Joe gingerly helped himself
for himself, Charles, and for his guest—Norman Rockwell.”®
Texas’s saloon soon became the favorite haunt of the wealthy and the accomplished—
New York’s earliest “beautiful people.” The custom included Walter Chrysler, Reggie
Vanderbilt, John Jacob Astor, Gloria Swanson, AlJolson, John Gilbert, Clara Bow, John
and Ethel Barrymore, Ruby Keeler, Rudolph Valentino, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy
Parker, Texas’s good friend Mae West—and
Joe Leyendecker and Charles Beach, the “it”
couple. Joe met everyone of consequence in society—brash girls with bobbed hair, short
skirts, and heavy makeup; dapper gadabouts in flashy cars—studied their demeanor,
profiles, haughtiness and accoutrement, spats, monocles, and recorded it all, passing it
along in his illustrations for everyone to see and emulate.
Texas Guinan’s influence on Leyendecker’s view ofthe world is not to be dismissed.
Her notions of style and bravado became the filter through which he saw the world, and the
lifestyle she promoted transformed his own way oflife. Charles Beach began to organize
risqué parties in New Rochelle, usually with holiday themes. J.C. Leyendecker and Charles
Beach offered a certain mystique and panache to each occasion. The Arrow Collar Man
was a perennial draw, and Joe, America’s foremost illustrator and a celebrity, attracted
people of consequence like moths to a flame: everyone coveted a platonic relationship
with Leyendecker, sexual preferences notwithstanding. The parties at Mount Tom Road
became important social and celebrity-making events. The popular gossip maven Walter
Winchell (1897-1972) in particular frequented the Mount Tom Road parties as well as the
Club Intime (Texas was his gossip mentor) and wrote about them often. The coverage set
fashion fads, established drinking and smoking trends, even dictated which automobiles
were acceptable, and forever changed the shape ofjournalism by exposing private lives
with salacious stories. The accounts never touched upon the relationship between Joe and
Charles, however, due to Joe’s cultural influence on the nation—and perhaps because the
columnists would not be invited back.
Leyendecker’s depictions of this opulent existence, and perhaps his own lifestyle as
well, helped to shape an entire generation. While in Paris, Joe had learned that manners,
style, and fashion were tantamount to accomplishment in society. The “common folk”
attempted to gain acceptance by parroting styles they witnessed in magazines. (Of
course, foreign-born, Catholic, and gay, without high school or college education,
J.C. Leyendecker knew only too well how difficult such acceptance could be to attain.)
Leyendecker became the purveyor, and his Arrow Collar Man the epitome, of everything
the public sought. In the process of developing that image, together J.C. Leyendecker and

46 J.C. LEYENDECKER
Charles Beach became the persona of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s symbol of the so-called Lost In the Stands 1.1913. Oil on canvas, 20 x 24".
Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement
Generation, Jay Gatsby.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940), novelist and screenwriter, was an
internationally influential writer and national celebrity living an opulent life of gaiety
and alcoholic abandon when he first met Joe Leyendecker and Charles Beach. Scotty and
his wife, Zelda, traveled in Europe and socialized on Long Island, and at Texas Guinan’s
speakeasy. It was there that he met Joe and Charles.
The parallels between the Leyendeckers and Gatsby are uncanny. Michael Schau put
it most succinctly when he said, “The characters of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
come to mind in many Leyendecker pictures ofthe twenties: well-to-do, civilized people
with self-confidence reinforced by breeding, education, position, and taste. They were
sophisticated, but not above gaiety.”
Both Joe Leyendecker and Jay Gatsby rose from impoverished Midwest beginnings
to live lives of great wealth, sophistication, and lavish spending. Charles and Joe enjoyed
entertaining and had what were considered to be “the best” parties. Fitzgerald’s written
descriptions of Gatsby’s parties echo Leyendecker’s visual interpretations ofhis guests:
they included “businessmen, wealthy East Eggers, theatre people, even a prince.” In
The Great Gatsby (1925), Jay Gatsby was described as throwing wild weekend parties

J.C LEYENDECKER 47
 throughout the summer, remaining aloof from the guests, people whom he hardly knew.
Like a surgeon selecting a scalpel, Joe too surveyed his guests from the fringes, studying
them for future depiction. Gatsby’s soirees ended after Daisy expressed her distaste for
them. Likewise, Mary Leyendecker openly expressed her disgust with Beach, his friends,
and the endless parties.
In The Great Gatsby, shirts represented Gatsby’s wealth—a colossal illusion invented
by the upper classes to proclaim their status at the expense of those who could not care
less—and so too did Leyendecker invent the Arrow Collar Man to become a virtual symbol
of the Roaring Twenties. This was Joe’s goal on behalf of Arrow Collars, later Arrow Shirts:
to make “his” customers crave the world as their toy, their oyster. By simply purchasing an
Arrow Shirt for $1.50, or so Leyendecker made one believe, a man could buy into the world
of civility and prominence.

Soon, the Leyendeckers’ legendary galas and glamorous lifestyle helped turn the sleepy
suburb of New Rochelle into a magnet for celebrities of all sorts. In time it became the
third wealthiest city per capita in the country. Of course, an elegant and dissolute place to
gather was not all that New Rochelle had to offer. The historic community’s rural setting,
with rolling fields and wildflowers, the nearby ocean, and a short, forty-minute train ride
into New York City made it the best of all worlds. Realizing the positive lifestyle it could
afford them, other artist-illustrators gravitated to New Rochelle, making it a virtual
artist’s colony, albeit an unlikely one in such a suburban setting. Among the luminaries
who followed the Leyendeckers’ lead were C. Coles Phillips, Orson Byron Lowell, Lucius
Walcott Hitchcock, Ernest Albert, Rudolph Belarski, Edward Penfield, Franklin Booth,
Clare Briggs, Victor Clyde Forsythe, Walter Beach Humphrey, Fred Dana Marsh, L. A.
Shafer, George Tobin, and Revere F. Wistehuff.
For Norman Rockwell, it was neither New Rochelle’s scenic landscape nor its proximity
to New York City that attracted him. Rockwell moved to 24 Lord Kitchener Road the year
after the completion of the Mount Tom Road house to be near J.C. Leyendecker. Rockwell
vividly described his admiration for Leyendecker in his biography, published nine years
after Joe’s death, citing him as an early idol and recalling that he had a Leyendecker
picture hanging in his studio. He came to fault Leyendecker in later life, however,
for withdrawing from society and for not experimenting more beyond what Rockwell
considered Leyendecker’s “true and tried style.”
Rockwell got the chance to have his work reproduced along with Leyendecker’s
in 1938 when, ina burst of uncharacteristic insight, the New Rochelle Chamber of
Commerce hired the best of the local illustrators to prepare a booklet entitled “AD
1688: New Rochelle—The City of the Huguenots.” At the time of publication there were
ninety-six members in the local Art Association, many with national reputations. J.C.
Leyendecker was selected to provide the bold cover painting (see page 33); Norman
Rockwell, along with Coles Phillips and Orson Lowell, was asked for an inside
illustration. Rockwell later griped, “New Rochelle published a brochure illustrated with
reproductions by all the famous artists who lived in town. Joe worked on his painting for

A8 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 C. COLES PHILLIPS (1880-1927)
Illustrator and Friend

Coles (“Cy”) Phillips, an illustrator whose paintings and reputation rivaled those
of Gibson, Christy, and even Leyendecker, became Joe’s closest friend. Cy
focused on the depiction of the ideal American woman. His “Fadeaway Girls,”
which featured a technique he pioneered whereby the background matches the
color of a model’s dress, were distinctive for his technique and graphic strength,
although his images are not well known today. With his Fadeaway Girl, Coles
Phillips provided a counterpart to Leyendecker's ideal American male.
Unlike J.C. Leyendecker, who was well educated in his craft and began
painting at eight years old, Cy Phillips was an untrained painter who started |
late in life. Consequently, Phillips relied more on graphic design talents than on Norman Rockwell. Portrait of
technical painting abilities. He simply could not mold the shape: of pete an elegant Coles Phillips. 1927. Oilon can-
vas, 24 x 20". Signed lower right
.
hand, for example, with shading and light.
Coles Phillips arrived in New York from Ohio and was later introduced to
writers, and illustrators,
Leyendecker at The Players Club in Gramercy Park, a meeting ground for publishers,
where many important art commissions were awarded over lunch or in the lounge while dousing one’s throat
Beaux Arts Building,
with ruby red port by the fireplace. Leyendecker suggested that Cy take a studio at the
became close friends.
where their friendship flourished. Cy took professional advice from Joe, and they
Cy decided to move wife Teresa and
When the Leyendeckers espoused the virtues of life at New Rochelle,
bring up his children.
his family to Sutton Manor in New Rochelle as well, to have a better environment to
At a young age, Cy became racked with kidney disease, tuberculosis , and rapid sight deterioration. Joe
centered loving attention on the
helped. Cy’s family as much as he could. Childless himself, Joe particularly
four Phillips children. It was likely the most purely altruistic thing Joe ever
did and perhaps stemmed from the loss of his own family relationships.
J.C. Leyendecker was entertaining the Phillips children at a parade on
Fifth Avenue honoring Charles Lindbergh upon his return from France on
the day their father died. Joe gave the eulogy for his friend. He mentioned |
Phillips’s depictions of “young womanhood" and his “sense of decoration and
color” and spoke of Cy’s long enduring battle and how “art had contributed
beauty rather than pain into his life and consequently into the lives of others
through his illustrations.”*
C. Coles Phillips. Diary of a *Michael Schau, All American Girl: The Art of Coles

Mere Man. 1913. Gouache on Phillips (New York: Watson-Guptil, 1975), p. 40.
;
paper, 32 x 22"
 months and months, starting it over five or six times. I thought
he would never finish.” It’s possible he meant to suggest that
his mentor had problems with inconsequential commissions,
focusing better on work for publications such as The Saturday
Evening Post, with millions of readers. Or else he simply took
the opportunity to disparage a competitor.
While Rockwell, who came to know Joe quite personally
from about 1925 onward, admired, even revered Leyendecker
as an artist, he had nothing but disdain for his relationship
with Charles Beach, whom he characterized as “a real
parasite—like some huge, white, cold insect clinging to
Joe’s back. And stupid. I don’t think I ever heard him say
anything even vaguely intelligent.” In later years Rockwell
also came to be disturbed by his former idol’s lifestyle and
personal problems. He attributed what he considered to be
Leyendecker’s downfall—a descent into decadence, alcohol,
and unproductiveness—to his relationship with and increasing
reliance on Charles, who had insinuated himself into every
aspect ofJoe’s life. Joe, who had always been anxious and
timid, began to take on an aggressive behavior with others,
perhaps to hide his insecurities. Other than Beach, his sister,
and some remote cousins and houseboys, he was said to rarely
speak to anyone after 1930—quite different from the convivial
host from so many Gatsbyesque parties he had been in the past.
Joseph Leyendecker and Charles Beach led lives of art and
‘companionship for nearly half a century. In their winter years,
public tastes changed, the incursions offilm and television
The Babysitter. 1923. Oil on canvas, 26 x 20". slowly but dramatically altered the publishing industry forever,
Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
and the demand for Leyendecker’s work dwindled. By the end of the 1930s, commissions
Saturday Evening Post, August 25, 1923, cover
began to wane. The couple’s income fell, and after years of spending lavishly, their
finances had depleted significantly. Joe let his entire household staff go, and from then on
he and Beach maintained the extensive estate themselves.
With Ben Hibbs replacing George Lorimer as the editor of the Saturday Evening Post in
1941, Leyendecker’s most lucrative and celebrated string of commissions came to an end;
his last cover for the magazine, fittingly a New Year’s Baby, was published in January 1943.
New commissions continued to filter in, but slowly. Some of the most prominent were for
posters for the United States War Department, in which Joe depicted commanding officers
of the armed forces encouraging the purchase of bonds to support the nation’s efforts
in World War II. In 1945, Joe began painting covers for The American Weekly magazine,
a Sunday newspaper supplement printed on newsprint, a far cry from the high-quality
production values of the Post. Joe and Charles retreated, hermit-like, into their Mount Tom
refuge for fear of becoming destitute and without recourse.

J.C. LEYENDECKER
 NORMAN ROCKWELL (1894-1978)

Illustrator

In many ways, the man whose name is considered to be synonymous with American illustration—Norman.
Rockwell—modeled himself.on a now lesser-known artist, one of hisself-proclaimed idols, J.C. Leyendecker.
In 1960, Rockwell included a chapter on J.C. Leyendecker in his biography, My Adventures as an Illustrator. ae
Rockwell claimed to have followed Joe about town emulating the stance, swagger (limp), and “attitude” of the; :if
man he and America considered the best illustrator. As a budding young artist and with high hopes of rising. a
to the same exalted plateau—the preeminent Saturday Evening Post cover artist—Rockwell was consumed
by he
the man and his art. When the opportunity arose, Rockwell, an aggressive up-and-coming competitor, picked Lie i
Joe's brain for ideas, for contacts, and ultimately for clients. The shy Leyendecker, unaware of Rockwell's
_ competitive nature, naively revealed his contacts. Less than a year later, in 1916, the Post, Leyendecker's
single most important client, commissioned Norman Rockwell to paint
his first cover. For some time, they a ;
both produced Post covers, but Norman Rockwell ultimately supplanted his idol as the best-known cover
artist for the Saturday Evening Post. ae
While Joe received little adulation or credit for his iconic images, Rockwell de facto took that credit.‘
Today it is generally accepted that Norman Rockwell established the besekucwe visual images of Americana.
_ In reality, in many cases they were in large part picked from Leyendecker's repertoire by the younger artist.
Rockwell’s holiday cover interpretations, for example, were not creatively emai nc like Joe!s, but rather
were reinterpretations of themes established by J.C. Leyendecker.
Rockwell virtually did everything possible to imitate J.C. Levendecker He moved to New Rachelle to be
near Leyendecker. He analyzed how J.C. developed his cover ideas. He studied his style and technique, tusing in
his own work the same broad, white background strokes, projecting figures ‘outside the cover frame overlaying - :
the logo. masthead, and painting caricatures. He imitated Joe so completely the public became confused as to z
~the source. Leyendecker’s career slumped thereafter. i) Bee
Whereas Leyendecker shrunk from the public eye, especially in his later years, Rockwell sought the’
a __TS” spotlight. He longed for public recognition, not only for his images but for
himself. Unlike Leyendecker, he had no personal style and little sense oF
flash. Gawky and awkward, he had trouble looking at himself in the mirror,
for what stared back did not please him. In later years, he often placed his
own image into his illustrations in order to gain attention, and portrayed :
himself accurately but with more Adam's apple than neck. Eventually,
Rockwell replaced Leyendecker in |
Norman Rockwell. The Babysitter (study | America’s collective consciousness.
for Saturday Evening Post, November
8, 1947). 1947. Oil on canvas, 30 x 28”.
Signed and inscribed upper right
 SOMO CER Big ane Joe Leyendecker’s last debilitating years were spent fighting
heart disease sans friends, most of whom who had long forgotten the
: disconsolate living legend. His last visitors were fellow illustrators and
lackluster acquaintances from bygone days. Others seeking audiences
January 2, 1943 10°

with the master were rebuffed by Charles, perennial guardian oftheir

nest. For the last weeks ofJoe’s life, Charles forbade company altogether,
arousing rancor among those colleagues who had hoped to pay final
homage to their falling idol.
OnJuly 25, 1951, Joe Leyendecker lay on a beaten-up aluminum
chaise in his overgrown garden, once the delight of horticulturalists.
Wearing a collarless, unironed Arrow shirt with rolled-up sleeves and
wide-pleated, pinstripe trousers, he looked a bit frowsy but not out of
place. With the London Times in one hand, he was sipping a Chapman’s
(black rum, orange juice, and a splash ofbitters—a Gatsby-worthy
libation) with the other. Undoubtedly dreaming of halcyon days, he felt
a dull, throbbing pain in his forehead. He called out to Charles, drawing
him from inept hedge pruning. When the newspaper fell and the cocktail
glass shattered on the slate terrace, Joe began mumbling inaudibly and
slumped. Kneeling by his partner’s side, Charles took his pulse, ran to
summon the doctor, and prepared another Chapman’s. Joe never got
the chance to take another sip: he died in Charles’s still-strong arms,
Saturday Evening Post. January 2, 1943. Printed just minutes after the doctor arrived. Death was reported as an acute
mabe re over coronary occlusion.
Norman Rockwell was among the seven people who attended the wake in Joe’s studio,
where he found Joe’s painting smock neatly laid out, his wide brushes all arranged nearby,
and Charles “hovering about the corners of the studio, straightening out pillows on the
couch or dusting a table.” The day was bleak, with dark gray skies; a downpour had caused
the rear terrace to puddle like a small pond. Besides Beach and Rockwell, the only other
people in attendance were his sister, Mary; two cousins on his mother’s side; a priest; and
the funeral director.
After Joe’s death, Charles carried out his instructions to “destroy everything,” at
least as far as personal mementos, records, and correspondence went. But despite Joe’s
wishes, he could not bring himselfto destroy all the paintings and sketches; he later sold
remainders in a yard sale. With a rather large inheritance (having lived his last years
frugally, Joe left a sizable estate, which Beach and Mary shared equally), he did not need
the money from the sale but wanted artists and fans to be able to get something. Buyers,
however, were scant; among them were a few illustrators and neighbors who were curious
about the artsy homosexual couple down the street. J.C. Leyendecker’s work fetched
pitifully low prices. Nothing went for more than seven dollars, and some sold for as little as
fifty cents—a sad legacy for the man whose ethereal visions had made him the most famous
Opposite: The American Weekly. July 4, 1948.
and celebrated illustrator in America.
Printed magazine cover

Sy J.C. LEYENDECKER
 TR Ee ey OE
aA

“The Nation's Reading Habit”

Copyright. 1943. by

-
Hearst Pablisting Company, Inc.

W/EEKLUY
All Rights Reserv

Greatest
Circulation
in the World

—
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=

J.C. LEYENDECKER 35)

THE LEYENDECKER LOOK

In evaluating how to best promote himself and his work, J.C. Leyendecker
believed that his greatest impact as an artist was creating images easily
reproduced, immediately recognized, and broadly distributed for audiences
by the millions to appreciate. It was not an accident that his advertising
and cover paintings morphed into iconic visions and prototypes. He knew intuitively that
representational, symbolic images could become icons of our civilization and his own legacy.
Leyendecker developed a particular ambience for the product of each corporate
client or magazine cover. Yet, after his move to New York, J.C. Leyendecker’s style of
painting never changed; it was always identifiable by the public. The words echo still
in front of each ofhis advertisements or magazine covers, “That’s a Leyendecker!” And
the viewer uttering those words would never be wrong, for no one else painted like
J.C. Leyendecker.
One of the most striking characteristics of his works is their underlying homoerotic
nature. In his glory days, friend and foe brushed Leyendecker’s sexual orientation aside.
Largely ignored, if the subject did come up it was characterized as a “notorious affliction,
not to be discussed”; rather, it was Joe’s fame as an artist that was touted. Knowing that
revealing his secret would threaten his popularity and success, Joe never came out ofthe
closet (in fact, almost no one did in those days). He also attempted to conceal his sexual
orientation in his work, which was often characterized by heterosexual female adoration
for handsome males depicted in overtly erotic poses. Yet, ironically, he was the most
manifest homosexual artist of the early twentieth century—a virtual hero—as his work
clearly demonstrates to today’s enlightened audience.
To create such delicious illustrations, he smoothed oils on models’ muscles, enhancing
the light reflecting on male surfaces he admired most: one model said that Joe always
painted him in a darkened studio, with only candlelight highlighting the erotic qualities of
his gleaming form. The gay subculture saw the irony in his work and appreciated the erotic
images he lavished upon the world.
These homoerotic images appealed to heterosexual viewers as well, however. Ina
subtle subversion of heterosexual mores, unattractive men turned to them in their quest
to be more appealing through the products being advertised. Sportsmen never saw the Couple Descending Staircase. 1932. Oil on
canvas, 49'/s x 32". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
football players’ images as anything but manly, for they reveled in the enthusiasm created advertisement featuring models Phyllis Frederic
among the fans. College men, particularly Ivy Leaguers and prep school chums, were and Brian Donlevy

a
 proud that their alma maters were highlighted. And most of all, women were drawn to Joe's
images, dreaming of intimacies with men who possessed “The Leyendecker Look.”
It was in his 32nd Street studio that Joe more fully developed his painting technique
and The Leyendecker Look. The totality of previous experiences had simmered like a
stew, and when done, it was presented to the public. The Leyendecker Look captured the
ambience of an entire époque, offering the audience glamorous escapism. Combining
convincing depictions of attractive people with Impressionistic effects of light and color
and discernable brushstrokes, Leyendecker refined complex, abstract thoughts to a
single image. The men were always handsome, muscled, and dapper; the women beautiful
and svelte (belying Joe’s claim that he had serious technical difficulties in painting
women; his Couple Descending Staircase for Arrow Collars, for example, shows as seductive
and vibrant a depiction of the feminine form as can be found in advertisements of the
period). All were positioned in heroic poses, portrayed in perfect anatomical replications
learned from Royal Academicians. In addition, Leyendecker often embellished images
with props from bygone eras, such as medieval swords and shields, recalling his
dormant nostalgia for the chivalrous past. He incorporated it all into diagrammatic
layouts with graphic clarity and capped it all off by his use of elaborate fonts and his
instantly identifiable signature. A red or orange monogram-like composite of his initials,
sometimes encircled, other times with his surname completely spelled out, it looked
like an Asian chop mark derived from Japanese Ukiyo-e prints so popular among the
Impressionists.
Some artists are copyists when they start their careers and copycats when they end,
but most try to develop their own style. Those whose art takes a unique direction are
considered masters. J.C. Leyendecker was just such a master.
Unquestionable draftsmanship coupled with a liquid, loose brushstroke was his
means to accomplishing the fresh, vibrant Leyendecker Look. Always the consummate
professional, he made studies in multiple sizes to produce a realistic depiction of a single
aspect. Some of his most interesting work can be found in these wonderfully detailed
sketches, where articulated studies of hands, aquiline noses, costumed buttocks, and
muscular thighs float together as ethereal visions on the same canvas.
Leyendecker’s favorite mediums were oil, watercolor, gouache, pencil and ink, usually
on a white background. He invented and popularized the exaggerated, quick brushstroke
effect known as pochet, or crosshatched strokes with oil paint, just as Beaux Arts architects
rendered elevation drawings. The noted graphic artist Franklin Booth (1874-1948) had
used a similar technique in ink renderings, but Joe used it in color and at a larger scale,
and not just for shadows and shading, but also for depicting light on nearly all surfaces.
He also used Pointillist-style dots in colors and patterns to accomplish the pochet effect.
In order to do so, oil paints must dry quicker than normal, particularly to get a casual,
fleeting “snap-of-the-wrist-look.” Joe created a special mix of linseed oil and turpentine
that dried almost instantly, keeping it a secret from all but Frank for years. He also coupled
accuracy with exaggeration to assure that an average audience could understand the
message. The result forced the viewer's eye to the focus of the painting, the subject. Every

56 J.C. LEYENDECKER
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J.C. LEYENDECKER Oy
RIGHT: Interwoven Socks—Famous
for Their Colors (study). 1927. Oil on
canvas, 21'/2 x 14/2". Unsigned. Study
for Interwoven Socks advertisement
reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
December 27, 1930 (see page 241)

opposite: Butterfly Couple (study).

1923. Oil on canvas, 17 x 13". Unsigned.
Study for House of Kuppenheimer
advertisement

60 J.C. LEYENDECKER
IKE NEY ND CK ER 6]
 PHYLLIS FREDERIC (1906-CIRCA 1991)

Model
rey
oe
) #EYVSS
xeS

~~ {n 1989, a woman called, asking to visit the American ®) AI

‘Ilustrators Gallery to see original J.C. Leyendecker Ea)

ot
~

i paintings from the Golden Age of American Illustration. iQ)

ee
- Once there, the first thing she did was turn her profile
a ‘to the side and stand next to the original Leyendecker 3

"painting for the 1923 Post cover of Cleopatra. It was @)

indeed Phyllis Frederic, sixty-four years later. x KE
Se

ie Phyllis
still lived in the tumultuous apartment building ae)
ep on West 54th Street that once housed Joe’s studio IQ)
PE)
‘and Texas Guinan’s Club Intime. Her father, William
oO
CO4NS
‘ ‘Frederic (1861-1931), had been a famous theatrical and
Sa silent screen star; her mother, Helene, as well as various
es ‘aunts, siblings, and other relatives were all.on the silent
“’ screen. In short, they were a lesser-known Barrymore-
like family. William Frederic, also known as “Pops,” had a
‘command presence, which made him a great model in his
later years. He appeared in dozens of Norman Rockwell
a paintings, the most memorable of which was his image
: _as Santa. Phyllis also sat for Rockwell, and her dog Spot
was a favorite model for both Rockwell and Leyendecker Cleopatra. 1923. Oil on canvas, 24°/, x 18°". Signed lower
right. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, October 6, 1923,
“as. well. eee
Phyllis passed Joe’s studio almost daily on her way
to meet her father at Rockwell’s studio. A true beauty, she soon caught Joe's
eye. Seeking more modeling work, Pops and his daughter dropped in on J.C.
Leyendecker one day in 1922. After talking at some length both were hired on the
spot. Spot was thrown in with the package and became popular fodder for comedic
spice in Joe's works thereafter, often appearing without Pops or Phyllis.
Phyllis worked for Leyendecker until 1932. She recalled being portrayed as
the redhead in Couple Descending Staircase (see page 54), along with the actor
Brian Donlevy. Because Donlevy was too short for the pose, Beach added orange
crates to raise him to the right height on the “staircase.”

Phyllis Frederic, c. 1914

 During this period, Joe was undergoing personal upheavals.
Being in the public eye—successful, a star—he worried that rumors
of his sexual orientation would damage his. reputation and: came.
to think it would be prudent tohide behind a! “beard.” The striking.
sixteen year-old Phyllis could be that beard. There iisalso some
speculation that Joe may have been trying to. lend more support
to Frank, now ailing and increasingly distraught, by.leaving Beach
and changing his own life's direction with an arranged marriage.
To that end, a few months afterthey began working together,
Joe unabashedly asked Pops for. Phyllis’ss hand in marriage,
attaching a business plan to the proposal. Pops, recognizing the’
“problems,” brusquely rejected the idea, saying that the age te
_ difference was too great and that ifJoe really thought about it,he
would recognize what a ‘‘grave error” he would be making. Phyllis
herself only learned of Joe’s proposal at the age of sixty-five.
Phyllis contrasted the different working styles of America’s”
Marching Brass Band (study). 1933. Oil on canvas, two most famous illustrators: “Rockwell took photographs of ©
17°/s x 12". Unsigned. “Pops” Frederic posed as
the tuba player me and my father. Rockwell would paint a picture later. and you .
would not even know that he used you forthe painting. After my.
father died, Rockwell used pictures of
0 ica forae beyond... wt
sometimes hurt my mother to recognize father, seeing him
appear after he had passed.” As for Leyendecker, “| never
saw any paintings by Leyendecker from photographs....
We
just kept posing, like it or not. J.C. Leyendecker had Beach
go tothe libraryto research photographs of items he would |
‘use as props in his paintings. He never used photos of me,
but did lots of sketches of what he called my brain. Mr.
Leyendecker often asked me questions while | modeled. |
once told him a story my mother told me, that when | was
nine, | talked in my sleep in languages, Romance languages,
_and hejoked with me about that all the time.”
' The last time we interviewed Phyllis was in March 1990.

Marching Brass Band. 1933. Oil on canvas, 31 x

24". Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, July 1, 1933, cover
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TOP: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes 1876. 1926. Oil

on canvas, 26 x 20". House of Kuppenheimer
advertisement. Reproduced: Saturday Evening
Post, September 18, 1926

ABOVE: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes 1926. 1926.

Kuppenheimer advertisement. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, September 18, 1926

Kuppenheimer's Good Clothes (Cut Yourselfa Piece of

Cake. It’s Kuppenheimer’s Birthday) (study). 1926. Oil on
canvas, diptych, a: 18 x 12'/2"; b: 18 x 20". Unsigned. Study
for House of Kuppenheimer advertisement

64 J.C. LEYENDECKER
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J.C. LEYENDECKER 65
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ABOVE: Kuppenheimer Advertisement. Repro-

duced: Saturday Evening Post, March 25, 1922
RIGHT: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes—Kite Flying
(study). 1922. Oil on canvas, 21 x 13". Study for
House of Kuppenheimer advertisement

OPPOSITE AND OVERLEAF: Saturday Evening Post

cover art

OPPOSITE, clockwise from above left: Children

under the Mistletoe. 1908. Oil on canvas, 23 x
19". Signed lower right. Reproduced: December
26, 1908. Yuletide—The Kiss under the Mistle-
toe. 1933. Oil on canvas, 30's x 25". Signed
lower right. Reproduced: December 23, 1933.
Christmas Prayers. 1921. Oil on canvas, 27'/2 x
19/2". Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
December 24, 1921. Twas the Night Before
Christmas, 1936. 1936. Oil on canvas, 31/4 x 24".
Signed lower right. Reproduced: December 26,
1936. Santa Loves You. 1925. Oil on canvas, 28
x 21". Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
December 26, 1925
PAGE 68, clockwise from above left: God Rest Ye
Merrie Gentlemen. 1932. Oil on canvas, 32'/2 x
24'/:". Signed lower right. Reproduced: Decem-
ber 24, 1932. Holy Night. December 29, 1934. Oil
When a sketch particularly suited him, Leyendecker drew a pencil grid on the final
on canvas, 32 x 24". Monogrammed lower right.
Reproduced: December 29, 1934. Good Boy. canvas and then enlarged it to the final size so that the change of scale did not alter the
1915. Oil on canvas, 26 x 22". Signed lower right.
concept or the strength of the image. Leyendecker referred to this process as a “picture
Reproduced: December 0), 1915. Yule. 1931. Oil
on canvas, 30'/s x 22'/,". Monogrammed lower puzzle” due to the fact that he would assemble the sketches with alternative poses and
right. Reproduced: December 26, 1931
compile them as an aggregated composite, the diametric opposite of artist Chuck Close
PAGE 69, Easter (18th Century Frenchman with
today. Such a compilation enabled Joe to eliminate unessential elements, clarify the
Poodle). Monogrammed lower right. April 19,
1930. Printed magazine cover graphic layout, and fulfill his notion of what was required by his commission.

66 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 As for brushes, “As a rule I start work with a round or flat sable using a thin wash with
turps as a medium. Keep shadows very transparent and as the work progresses apply the
paint more thickly on lighted areas adding some poppy or linseed oil ifnecessary, and
using a larger flatter brush for the heavier paint. ... When the work is dry, apply a quick-
drying retouching varnish either with a brush or an atomizer... try
and avoid photography, if possible.”
J.C. Leyendecker created some of our most beloved and endearing
symbols, iconic images that set the style and tone for entire
generations of Americans. From the Age of Opulence, through Art
Deco and the Age of Style, Joe Leyendecker remained steadfastly true
to his view of the world. The power ofhis images is such that many of
them reign today, part of our everyday life. They pique the imagination
for all ages and have spread the world over.
In a widely supported editorial in 1903, The Saturday Evening
Post called for a revamping of the national holidays, lamenting that
although there were thirty holidays on the calendar, only five received
any general observance. “We have on Christmas the opportunity
for love and charity, at Thanksgiving the occasion for gratitude, on
Election Day the right of self-government, on the Fourth ofJuly the
display of patriotism.” Joe took these words to heart. Not only did he
create for those special days images that came to symbolize the holiday
| itself, his depictions actually changed the way America celebrated.
Thus began a tradition at the magazine. At first Joe asked for the
holiday issues, but later the art editor automatically came to him with
those assignments. The public came to expect the Leyendecker images,
and the magazine thrived. So popular were Joe’s holiday covers that
Post subscriptions increased with each one; by 1913, circulation
had risen to two million copies a week, making it the most popular
magazine in the world. It did not elude Joe that the huge response his

J.C. LEYENDECKER 67
ASS
ad"WZ.£4/b a
An assortment of Saturday Evening (Man in Mirror). Oil on canvas, 30 x
Post holiday cover art. Left to right, 24". Signed lower right. Reproduced:
from top: Thanksgiving 1935. 1935. Oil on April 1, 1936. Easter Egg Hunt. 1933.
canvas, 32 x 24". Monogrammed lower Oil on canvas, 32 x 24". Signed lower
left. Reproduced: November 23, 1935. right. Reproduced: April 15, 1933.
Thanksgiving—Boy Dreaming of Turkey. Easter Bonnet. 1921. Oil on canvas, 25'/2
1917. Oil on canvas, 24'/. x 19". Signed x 18/2". Monogrammed lower right.
lower left. Reproduced: November 24, Reproduced: March 26, 1921. Easter—
1917. Thanksgiving—Indian Bartering with Girl with Bonnet. 1910. Oil on canvas,
Pilgrim. 1923. Oil on canvas, 26 x 20". 22 x 18". Signed lower right. Repro-
Monogrammed lower left. Reproduced: duced: March 26, 1910. 4th of July. 1913.
December 1, 1923. Ready for Thanks- Oil on canvas, 30 x 22". Signed lower
giving Feast. 1919. Oil on canvas, 24 x right. Reproduced: July 5, 1913. George
18". Signed center right. Reproduced: Washington. 1927. Oil on canvas, 28'/2 x
November 29, 1919. Which? 1908. Oil 21/2". Monogrammed lower left. Repro-
on canvas, 24 x 20". Signed lower right. duced: July 2, 1927
Reproduced: October 31, 1908. Easter
images received was at least in part due to his having chosen a specific
symbol for each holiday, enabling his public to focus on a single
comprehensible theme.
Many of J.C. Leyendecker’s concepts (a baby for the New Year,
flowers for Mother’s Day) have lasted well beyond the demise of the
Post and remain iconic images today. His most famous figure, the
Arrow Collar Man, virtually created the concept of “branding.” He
took branding further when his images created a demand for an entire
industry: advertising.

THE ART OF ADVERTISING IN A PRODUCT-ORIENTED

SOCIETY
. The era between 1920 and 1930 became the epitome for advertising
illustration and for illustration as art, advertising as art. Almost all
companies engaged in advertising, though early on the norm was to
emphasize the consumer more than the product. New professions
had emerged and were maturing; advertising agencies blossomed
into quasi-professional business corporations. Their executives,
creative directors, and marketing managers were all-pervasive. The
best-known gathering of such talent was in New York on Madison
Avenue; the address itself became synonymous with “advertising.”
Money flowed, ideas blossomed, until Madison Avenue felt that it
was in control of the nation’s conscience and the very direction of
our country. Advertising executives assumed that they could provoke
whole new “crazes” and fashions—and they did. Advertisers, their
consultants, and their illustrators were missionaries carrying forth ras tn ai myKechen,
a 2suitablero atroryalsefSn
.rm abich we willsend a copy (wittimat, geterten)
framing. TOK PROCTER 4GAMBLE CO. CUNCENKATE
COPVmGRT ieneA TAH PROCTI & GAWALEOD.CrNCHRNAT
messages of faith to our people. The most influential amongst them all
was J.C. Leyendecker. Ivory Soap. 1900. Printed advertisement
One of the greatest strengths of Leyendecker’s style was his uncanny ability to focus on
a single part of a subject, for example a part of the anatomy, highlight it, and make it reflect
like a facet of a jewel. This was what advertisers and marketing directors sought from
illustration; a sole focus. An illustrator wants to gently guide his audience’s eyes directly
to the subject at hand, be it a supple satin shirt draped over a gentleman’s muscular
chest, an elegant uniform fitted onto the chiseled frame of a handsome, argyle-sock-clad
bagpiper—or a gentle soul ina silk robe, standing in a bathroom with a semi-obvious
erection, holding up a bar of soap. The viewer’s eye skipped all over but landed on the
small bar of soap—the advertisement worked (although perhaps the gay community had a
good laugh en route to purchasing a dozen Ivory Soap bars, for their eyes went elsewhere).
A product-oriented society was born.
As early as just after the turn of the century, Leyendecker was already changing the
course of advertising. Leyendecker was able to discern trends and advertisers’ needs
for satiating customers’ demands. The times were evolving quickly from Victorian into

J.C. LEYENDECKER 7|
modern. The Luna Park opened at Coney Island, cattle shows
and county fairs were taking place countrywide, Palm Beach
boomed, as did the rest of Florida, fashion changes made
dress easier, and new products abounded. Joe exploded his
professional reputation in 1908 with advertisements for
B. Kuppenheimer & Co., and soon thereafter Interwoven
Socks commissioned the now renowned commercial artist
to undertake their advertising thenceforth. His ads for
Kuppenheimer were so successful that within two years later,
the company employed two thousand men and women, hustling
to make suits to meet demand.

Arrow Collar Man + Sex Symbol

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Victorian styles
dictated a starched, stiff collar be worn by gentlemen. Easier
than cleaning the whole shirt, simply replacing only the Man and Woman with Horses. 1914. Oil on
; F ,17'/2 ". Unsigned.A Coll
collar was a sensible answer to the all pervasive problem. Cluett, Peabody & Company Se eee ee
advertisement. Reproduced: Literary Digest,
manufactured Arrow shirts and collars. In 1905, J.C. Leyendecker lobbied their new June 6, 1914
advertising director Charles M. Connolly with an original and innovative concept for
marketing. He proposed creating a unique male symbol for their products: “Not simply
aman, but a manly man, a handsome man... an ideal American man.” Connolly, already
familiar with Joe’s previous Arrow work as well as his famous magazine covers, believed
in Joe’s concept to create a “brand.” (The word came from cowboys “branding” cattle,

LEFT: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes (Sailor Fare-

well). 1917. Oil on canvas, 27 x 40'/2". Unsigned.
House of Kuppenheimer advertisement

OPPOSITE: Ivory Soap It Floats. 1900. Gouache

on board, 17’ x 12'/". Signed center left.
Ivory Soap advertisement. A more obviously
homoerotic version of the advertisement seen
on page 71

J.C. LEYENDECKER TS,

 S Oa 6) SG -F

Aristocrat of
iS Collars .
R/

identifying them with a logo, of sorts.) The Arrow advertisements

were not only the first major branding effort, they were the first
real advertising campaign ever launched.
Cluett, Peabody was already successful; they had thirty
competing companies producing over twelve thousand different
collar designs to contend with. Leyendecker’s illustrations
catapulted Arrow to the apex of the industry: the company grew
to a 96 percent market share, putting much oftheir competition
out of business. This phenomenal growth gained widespread
attention and affected the way everyone thought about marketing.
From a logical suggestion by an artist-illustrator, a fledgling
advertising industry blossomed into a mighty force, building
consumerism into a near religion. In the 1920s, J.C. Leyendecker
advertisements for Arrow appeared everywhere, often with
decorative frames enclosing his images, depicting various collar
styles. The frames were prepared by the celebrated industrial
designer Walter D. Teague, using a variety of different elements,
something like the current practice of clipart.
Joe wanted to create a matinee idol for Arrow to stir the
imagination of a generation, and he did. The future ofthe
American male stepped onto the fashion scene with the birth of
the Arrow Collar Man.
Charles Beach, the Arrow Collar Man, was the first male sex
symbol and the first sex symbol of either gender in advertising,
an idol for the public to fawn over. Women swooned when they
saw Beach pictured in advertisements, and men longed to emulate
him. He set the standard for elegance, for what a sophisticated
gentleman should not only look like, but be. The Arrow Collar
Top: The Aristocrat of Collars. 1925. Oil on Man was the American Spirit personified. A virtual Beau Brummell, he led all the trends
,14'/2 x 78172". Unsi d.A Coll ; : ‘ ‘4 ;
pes
irene
advertisement
ba de yeas SN for menswear for decades. Few, if any, of Leyendecker’s clients or viewing public knew that
AB OvinMen WR ihe in CecIaeenOnen the Arrow Collar Man was, in fact, the artist’s long-time partner.
canvas, 29'/2 x 20'/:". Unsigned. Arrow Collar Although Leyendecker recognized the sensitivities and physical danger of homoerotic
advertisement. Reproduced: Literary Digest,
March 1, 1919; American Magazine, March 1919;
depictions in his work, he felt confident enough to carefully and secretly portray them. A
Saturday Evening Post, June 7, 1924 certain test was his client’s reception to such illustrations. After an immediately positive

74 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 &

ge THIS IS THE NEW

9 Arrow
COLLARS Cluett. Peabody Co. Inc. Troy. N-Y. Makers

response, Joe was encouraged to insert more such homoerotic imagery, all without the
public understanding. The result was subliminal and successful. His clients considered
the advertisements “humdingers”: they appealed to the real swells, and they worked.
Leyendecker’s artworks unfettered the advertising industry from its earliest,
conservative, and unimaginative inception to spawn bold marketing campaigns like the
Marlboro Man. Paul Stuart, a high-end men’s clothing store, still uses a Leyendecker
figure as their logo. Advertising continues to play on the use of sex symbols and
exploitation of sexual situations and poses, with ambiguous allusions appealing to both
mainstream society and to the gay audience. One only has to look at a Ralph Lauren
advertisement inside the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine or in a department
store window to see Leyendecker-like images of handsomely attired men staring back in
a ghostly echo from an age Joe defined and which prevails yet. Even some oftoday’s styles
are emulated and expropriated from Leyendecker advertisements of old.
5 epee Ces : ABOVE LEFT: Arrow Collar 20¢ Ticket. 1924.
Arrow, Kuppenheimer, Ivory Soap, and Kellogg’s—his paintings of children for Corn Rae ewer meen ce
Flakes ads were among his sister’s favorites—were some of Leyendecker’s most loyal ;
TOP: Man with Narrow Tie. 1910. Oil on canvas,
clients, but over the years he did advertisements for dozens of other firms as well. Some 19 x 16/2". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
other national Leyendecker advertising clients included: A. B. Kirschbaum, Amoco, pore
em
ABOVE: A Portrait of aMan (study). 1921.
Boy Scouts of America, Carson Pirie & Scott Department Stores, The Chap Book,
Pencil and oil on canvas, 61/4 x 5/2". Study for
Chesterfield Cigarettes, Cooper Underwear, Fisk Rubber Company, Cream of Wheat, Interwoven Socks advertisement, now used by
Paul Stuart
Franklin Automobile, Hart Schaffner & Marx, Interwoven Socks, Inc., Karo Syrup,
Kaynee Company, Overland Automobile, McAvoy Brewing Company, Palmolive Soap, Pan
American Coffee, Pierce Arrow Automobile, Procter & Gamble, Right Posture Clothes,
Rogers & Company Printers, The Timken Company, U.S.A. Bond Drives, U.S. Fuel
Administration, Value First, Willys-Overland Company, U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines.

OVERLEAF: Men Reading. 1914. Oil on canvas, 19 x

39". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement

Je EEVENDECKER US
Le Lu re Lu La (es Lu O Wi, Lu x
poo}
 agenAAI LG
MEG so) CEZAR EM |
|
|

J.C. LEYENDECKER
 ee OTR EY

aS eae
Couple in Boat. 1922. Oil on canvas, 20'/2 x 29'/2".
Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement featuring
models Charles Beach and Phyllis Frederic
RIGHT: Golf. 1922. Oil on canvas,
29 x 20172". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
advertisement

opposite: Alden. 1922. Oil on

canvas, 20'/2 x 20" oval. Unsigned.
Arrow Collar advertisement

80 J.C. LEYENDECKER
J.C. LEYENDECKER
6 Ser ee Sa BREWAE
; ee Ok Fee
te

J.C. LEYENDECKER
82
 THE PART UNSEEN in clothes is important—linings,
canvas, how the clothes are modeled and tailored—don't worry about
the part unscen in Kuppenheimer good clothes
They are the cheapest clothes to buy—not only because ther wear
longer bat they look better through their period of service.

Copyright, 181. The House ofKapp

7S|HE MEN who are coming home breathe The styles are for the new .American figure, up-
>
the spirit of a new order. They represent right posture, slender waist and full chest. Fabrics,
a new type of young Amenica, new men- patterns and tailoring are such as to again justify
tally and physically. the reputation of the best tailored young men’s
The House of Kuppenheimer, alert and responsive clothes in Amenca.
to every tendency, has caught this new spmit in a! Our spnng Style Book illustrates the pomt.
remarkable Way. h White for it.

“A National Clothes Service”

ei Te HOUSE OF KUIPPERS BEES INES R255 = D Chicago, U.S. A.
ARE SEER) AE J j ,

OPPOSITE, ABOVE: Arrow Collar Advertisement with TOP LEFT: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes (The ABOVE: House of Kuppenheimer advertisement.
Collie. 1910. Oil on board, 19 x 40". Unsigned Hurdler). 1920. Oil on canvas, 2 paintings, 23 x Reproduced: Collier's, March 8, 1919
22" each. Unsigned. House of Kuppenheimer
OPPOSITE, BELOW: In the Stands 2. 1913. Oil on canvas, OVERLEAF: S.S. Leviathan. 1918. Oil on canvas, 28 x
advertisement
21 x 37'72". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement 42". Unsigned
TOP RIGHT: House of Kuppenheimer advertisement.
1920. Printed page from Kuppenheimer catalogue
J.C. LEYENDECKER 83
Ve anuatect
ABOVE LEFT: Man and Woman with Spanish
Shawl. 1926. Oil on canvas, 51 x 25". Unsigned.
Arrow Collar advertisement

ABOVE RIGHT: Man with Seated Lady. 1929.

Oil on canvas, 51 x 33". Unsigned. Arrow Collar opposite: Dancing Couple. 1930. Oil on canvas,
advertisement 38 x 24". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement
Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, November
8, 1930

86 J.C. LEYENDECKER
Kuppenheimer Good Clothes (Football
p layers and Fans). c. 1917. Oil on canvas, 26
x 60". Unsigned. House of Kuppenheimer
advertisement

88 J.C. LEYENDECKER
J.C. LEYENDECKER 89
ABOVE: Matador (Unfold Your True Colors.)
1940s. Oil on canvas, 21 x 53'/2". Mallory Hats (?)
advertisement

OPPOSITE: Matador (study). 1940s. Oil on canvas,

29°/s x 16". Unsigned. Study for Mallory Hats (?)
advertisement

90 J.C. LEYENDECKER
PAGE 92:
ABOVE LEFT: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes
(Man and Jockey). 1923. Oil on canvas, 28 x 21".
Unsigned. House of Kuppenheimer advertise-
ment. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, June
14, 1923

ABOVE RIGHT: Kuppenheimer—The Homecoming.

1918. Oil on canvas, 28'/; x 423/s". Unsigned
BELOW: New Styles for the New Figure. 1918.
Oil on canvas, 22 x 30". Unsigned. House of
Kuppenheimer advertisement

PAGE 93: Kuppenheimer Good Clothes

(Wolfhound). c. 1925. Oil on board, 26°/: x
203/,". Unsigned. House of Kuppenheimer
advertisement

J.C. LEYENDECKER 91
 GOOD
CLOT HES

92 J.C. LEYENDECKER
TOP: Printed Pan American Coffee Producers
advertisement. Reproduced: Saturday Evening
Post, October 7, 1940

ABOVE: Printed Pan American Coffee Producers

advertisement. Reproduced: Collier’s, February
22,1941

RIGHT: Some Folks Frown on It... But It’s a Lot of

Fun. 1940. Oil on canvasboard, 9'/2x 11". Mono-
grammed lower left

94 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 WHEN YOU THINK of Kuppenheimer good clothes
think of them as truly American clothes—style and quality of materials
and workmanship.
They are clothes designed for the American figure—and to express
the American personality of the man in them.

ABOVE: Kuppenheimer advertisement. 1920.

Printed page from Kuppenheimer catalogue
LEFT: Kuppenheimer’s Good Clothes (Record
Time). c. 1920. Oil on canvas, 21'/2 x 20/2". House
of Kuppenheimer advertisement

OVERLEAF: Quality by Kuppenheimer (Mermaid

and Handsome Men). c. 1930. Oil on canvas,
2 panels, 25 x 19" each. Unsigned. House of
Kuppenheimer advertisement

PAGES 98-99: Two Men on Sofa. 1912. Oil on

canvas, 23 x 38". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
advertisement

J.C. LEYENDECKER 95
 MASTER OF THE MAGAZINE COVER
Between 1900 and 1945, Joe Leyendecker painted like a machine
gun. His illustrations graced the covers of the most important
national magazines, including Century Magazine, The Chap Book,
Circle, Club-Fellow & Washington Mirror, Collier’s, Delineator
Magazine, The Inland Printer, Interior, Judge, Ladies Home Journal,
Leslies, Literary Digest, McClure’s, Popular, The Saturday Evening Post,
Scribner’s Magazine, Success, Survey, Up to Date, Vanity Fair, Woman's
Home Companion, The Woman’s Magazine of St. Louis, and World’s
Work, and from 1945 on, The American Weekly.
Of all periodicals, J.C. Leyendecker’s most prestigious and
significant client was for four decades The Saturday Evening Post.
Founded in 1821, it claimed descent from the Pennsylvania Gazette,
first published by Benjamin Franklin in 1728, through Curtis
Publishing Company ownership. Cyrus Curtis bought the Post for
$1,000 in 1897, when it had a circulation of 2,300 subscribers.
He later acquired the Ladies’ Home Journal and eventually built
a mighty empire made up of an array of the most successful
magazines in several distinct categories. Under the leadership of
George Horace Lorimer, its editor from 1899 through 1937, the
Post hired the best writers available, including Stephen Vincent
Benet, James Branch Cabell, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad,
Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bret Harte,
Circus Corner. 1908. Oil on canvas, 25 x 21/2". O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, and Jack London.
Unsigned. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
May 23, 1908, cover
Two years after Curtis bought the Post, the magazine also hired the best illustrator,
JKC. Leyendecker. He was first commissioned to paint a Post cover for the May 1899
issue. Ultimately Leyendecker produced more Saturday Evening Post covers (322) than
anyone else, even Norman Rockwell (who painted 321 different images for the magazine).
Leyendecker worked for the Post for forty-four years, ending in 1943, producing one cover
per month in some years. He was without a doubt their most coveted property.
To a large extent, Leyendecker covers were the reason for the early success of the Post.
Most periodicals were sold at newsstands, and the cover images attracted customers,
stimulating sales. After Leyendecker’s precedent-setting career, Charles Livingston Bull,
John Clymer, Steven Dohanos, John Falter, Anton Otto Fisher, Harrison Fisher, James
Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson, J.F. Kernan, Frederic Remington, Robert Riggs,
N.C. Wyeth, and other famous artists went on to make their names with the Post. But the
best-known of all remained J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.
The following pages comprise a range ofperiodical images, which confirm all said
herein regarding this artist’s abilities and strengths. All 322 of Leyendecker’s Saturday
Evening Post covers are reproduced, some twice due to their specific importance. Images

opposite: J.C. Leyendecker’s first Saturday

are arranged chronologically by publication. Some of Leyendecker’s iconic images were so
Evening Post cover, May 20, 1899 groundbreaking they deserve particular attention.

J.C. LEYENDECKER
 THE SATURDAY
EVENING POST Founded At D} 1728 by Ben). Franklin.
Volume 171, No. 47 Philadelphia, May 20; 1899 5 Cents the Copy; $2.50 the Year
Copyright, 1899, by Tus Ocaris Posusuixe Commaxy PUBLISHED WEEELY AT 426 ARCH STREET Ratered at the Philaielphia Post-Oflce as Seoead-Clas Matter

T H EE smiled a little. But he straightened his face instantly.

Gordon reddened furiously. He had caught the smile.
this.
bushed
It is not
foe,
necessary
” mused Kelly.
to risk the men against
He went a few steps up the hill.
an am-

DREAM
“Yve fancied myself hit when I wasn’t within a mile of Gordon followed. Each had a tincup. The “‘ whew-pap”’
danger,’’ comforted the Colonel. of a bullet striking made him dodge.
Guantanamo was Gordon’s first experience. He himself “Too late! After you hear the ‘ pap’ it’s all over. Not
was quite uncertain how it would result. He understood his your call this time,’’ comforted Kelly.

WOMAN
temperament as much and as little as any one else did. He Gordon struck at some of the hardening mud on his
liked his dreams and he hated slaughter. But always the trousers. But Kelly saw his blush.
thundering guns, the crackling rifles, the bugling and drum- “T dodged myself, you know.’”
ming expanded some-
thing within. Per-
J haps it was then that
Gordon was the Sweet
JOHN LUTHER LONG Devil. For then he
would close his teeth
With Pictures by under his little yellow
J.C. Leyendecker mustache and do
whatever the thing :
within wished. But,
after it was over, the
Toe were nursing a handful of coals between them devil would go and
in a hole behind the intrenchments. Kelly looked off the sweetness return
toward the sea where the sun would presently rise. —and then Gordon
““ We'll have some hot work, I expect, as soon as they can was likely to tum
make us out,’’ he mused sleepily, priest and nurse to the
SYes;?? answered Gordon absently. , He was staring into men he had killed
" the little fire. 2 and wounded.
“Still dees ming? smiled ateolder solgjer “T hope the Marble-

ot a soldier.’”
y have made war glorious.””
2 weet Devil,’ I suppose—
because of the Tsieery in- your soul and the glory of your
sword,” gibed Kelly, quiteawake now. _
But he saw that he had made Gordon uncomfortable.
“Who is the woman?” =»
sopen tried to be frigid? Pi ©
“Oh, d ue
about
And you
*
knew from
me. That’s.w
Gordon showed his\amazement. .
“Yes, grizzled, fighting old Kelly!’’ He, too,
looked into the fire a silent moment. ‘‘ I was’ to
go.with Custer to the Little Big Horn. She asked
me not to go. I feigned illness, I wish I hadn’t.
She’s dead.” He shook himself. ‘‘I wouldn’t
give a hang for a man who doesn’t adore some
woman,’ He can fight better—he can do anything

inge™sadGordon, as if continuing Kelly’s

‘only adream. I have never seen her.
But she lives, I know, and I shall some day meet ~
her. I have dreamed her just as I would have
her. I shall wait for her.’’ Gordon smiled.
*
reached his hand across the little fire.
ack of amazement held Gordon an

“T know,’ said Kelly. ‘‘It may be my last.’”

The sun shot above the sea with theatrical sud- '
denness. Kelly put the tincups on the fire. i
‘* We'll have some coffee to make courage for us
till we are in it. Then we won’t need coffee.”
The light showed them both covered with the
mud and grime of hasty campaigning. Kelly
stood: up, and looked off toward the painted-
seeming jungle.
“I think we cléaned that last night.’’
‘T think so,’’ said Gordon.
He, too, stood up—thinking of something else.
From somewhere came the wiry ‘‘ whew’’ of a
Mauser bullet. Gordon dropped and spilled the
coffee.
‘* Little things like that are useful. They tend
to make one think of the very present. Oh i—notxe:
hit, are you?’’
Gordon’s face was white, and he was pressing
his chest.
Kelly ripped open his coat, then his shirt. He “Lt KNOW THAT YOU ARE ONLY A DREAM—THAT
* Copyright, 1899, by Fohn Luther Long 1 AM DREAMING NOW,” SAID GORDON

737
 THE SATURDAY . THE SATURDA > 4
| EVENING POST
An Illus beets ws
EVENIN G POST
JUNE 11, 1904

Romanova
George Horton
IME CURTIN PUBLISHING COMPANY

A E. IG = 4 ie BLOWITZ

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December 7, 1907 December 28, 1907 February 29,1908

OPPOSITE: Young Boy, His Dog and a Balloon. 1907. Oil on canvas, 293/s x 21". Signed lower left
THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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P%,
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MORE THAN A MILLION A WEEK CIRCULATION THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA THANKSGIVING.
May 15,1909 September 18, 1909 November 13, 1909

opposite: New Year's Baby 1909. 1909. Oil on canvas, 28 x 26". Signed lower left
 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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An Illustrated Weekly Magazine
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CHRISTMAS More Than a Million and a Quarter Circulation Weekly More Than a Million
AEE,
and a Quarter Cfreulation Weekly.

December 4, 1909 December 18, 1909 January

1, 1910

THE SATURDAY 7
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Beginning THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY-—By Will Irwin More Than a Million and a Half Circulation Weekly More Than a Million and a Half Circulation Weekly |
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February 12, 1910 March 26, 1910 June 4, 1910

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More.Than a Million and a Half Circulation Weekly

July 2, 1910 August 6, 1910 September 10, 1910

OPPOSITE: Mowing the Lawn. 1910. Oil on canvas, 26 x 21'/.". Signed lower center
THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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More Than a Million and a Half Circulation Weekly

ovember 12, 1910 December 3, 1910 December 31, 1910

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February 25,191 April1,191 July 1,190

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MORE THAN A MILLION AND THREE-QUARTERS CIRCULATION WEEKLY

August 19, 1911 September 2, 19n1 November 18, 1911

OPPOSITE: Snowball Fight. 1911. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21". Signed lower left
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MORE THAN A MILLION AND TMMEE-QUARTERS CIRCULATION WEEKLY

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December 2, 1911 December 30,1911 April 6, 1912

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MAY 25 1912 3c THE COPY

In This Number
- a oe Statements by |
JANE-2s, Mary Roberts Rinehart Fourth of July Number Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson

May 25, 1912 July 6, 1912 October 26, 1912

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

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THANKHKS GIVING THE LITTLE EOHIPPUS-—By Eugene Manlove Rhodes CHRISTMAS

November 16, 1912 November 30, 1912 December 7, 1912

opposite: Football Player: Drop Kicker. 1912. Oil on canvas, 30 x 20". Signed lower left
| THE SA TURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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An Illustrated Weekly
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DECEMBER 26, 1912 3 CENTS THE COPY

MORE THAN 1900,000 CIRCULATION WEEKLY MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK W. Wilson—Human Being. BySAMUELG.BLYTHE, _

December 28, 1912 March 22, 1913 ay 24,1913

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The Extra Man and The Milkfed Lion—By Charles E.Van Loan
TALLEYRAND > PENROD-5y BOOTH TARKINGTON THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA

June 21, 1913 July 5, 1913 July

19, 1913

‘THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY ©

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THE SPITTER-2, James Hopper pei ees Seven Aes and Mine—By Irvin S.Cobb MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK

September 20, 1913 November 1, 1913 November 15, 1913

OPPOSITE: New Year’s Baby 1913. 1912. Oil on canvas, 28'/2 x 21'/.". Signed center right
THE SATURDAY | THE SATURDA Y THE SATURDAY
BEES G po | eae G POST EVENING POST

| y \ in MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEER Our National Extravagance—By Sena °

L MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK

November 29, 1913 December 20, 1913 January 3,1914

THE SATURDAY
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The Little Genera ae Roberts Rinehart The First Weareee Jennings Bryan Beginning THE FAKERS-By Samuel G. Blythe

Nea n, 1914 April 25,1914 May 30, 1914

THE SATURDA D4 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

_ EVENIN' G POST An Illustrated Weekly
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L TheMutineer oftheMagyld coxcondtase DAUGHTERS OF SHILOH—By Rupert HUGHES BLYTHE’S WAR LET ERS
June 13,1914 July 4,1914 September 19, 1914
OPPOSITE: New Year's Baby 1914 (Baby on a Boat). 1914. Oil on canvas, 20 x 14". Signed lower right
 “THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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WAR AND BUS ESS—By Will Payne COBB’S STORY OF THE WAR The New Militants—By Corra Harris

October 3, 1914 October 24,1914 November 21, 1914

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William Allen White—Charles E. Van Loan—Irvin S. Cobb Irvin S$. Cobb—Frederick Irving Anderson—Samuel G. ae
THANKS GIVIN Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews—Holman Day—Corra Harris wy ee Serpe. calvinOe BeYetce— Barr.Leon
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November 28, 1914 December 19, 1914 January 2, 1915

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

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In This Number Gee

ATalk With the Hing of the Belgians BANZAI! By Samuel G. Blythe In This Number: Former Governor George H. Hodges
By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART H.R. By Edwin Lefévre—PERFECTLY NEUTER, By Montague Glass Peter B. yng Ewin Lefévre—Mary Roberts Rinehart
Skinner—Edward Mote Wwe

April 3, 1915 May 22, 1915 June 12, 1915

 THE SATURDAY THE SA TURDA Y THE SATURDAY
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THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS-—By Mary Roberts Rinehart

Stories and Articles by crewEs AORNEAN pUae, sour aRINTOR FOOTE Judge Priest Comes Back—ByIrvinS.Cobb
‘WOODS HUTCHINSON, PELHAMGi EHOUSE, COI IN LEFEVRE A Billion-Dollar Boece ETA. Cc. LAUT

July 3, 1915 July 24,1915 August 7, 1915

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY —

EVENING POST EVENING POST EVENING POST

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THANHS GIVING Beginning a New Series—By Mary Roberts Rinehart Fibble, D.D. By Irvin S.Cobb—Winged Crime By Arthur Train

November 20, 1915 December 11, 1915 December 25, 1915

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SA TURDAY

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New Series: WHAT IS COMING—By H. G.Wells A Chapter From the Life of an Ant—By Irvin S.Cobb MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK

January 1, 1916 March 0), 1916 April 15,1916

 ‘THE SATURDAY © THE SATURDAY
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THE SATURDAY |

EVENING POST EVENIN G POST

Beginning
eginning - SUDDEN JIM—By Clarence Budington Kelland
THE KEY OF THE FIELDS-—By Henry Milner Rideout ON THE ISONZO FRONT-By Will Irwin

April 22, 1916 May 6, 1916 June

17, 1916

THE SATURDAY — THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

_ EVENING POST oe G POST An Iluct
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THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA in —Corie:jane Lowe—Herbert Quick

Eawerd Mo Woolley—John Fleming Wilson Anne Warner StewaniEdwrord Whive
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July 1, 1916 August 26, 1916 September 30, 1916

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

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A GOOD ROOSTER CROWS EVERYWHERE—By George Pattullo 7 “SCRAP OF PAPER-By Ar x. Somers Roche
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November 4, 1916 December 2, 1916 December 23, 1916

OPPOSITE: The Politician (Campaign Orator). 1916. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21". Signed lower right
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THE SPREADING DAWN-By Basil King 7 Mall MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK

December 30, 1916 March 10, 1917 April 17, 1917

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

EVENING POST ING POST ly
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.\ _ 5c THE COPY

May 19, pated Te June 30, 1917 September 1, 1917

THE SATURDAY |THE SATURDAY

Ee EVENING POST |EVENING POST ai — ve lel :: :
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In This Number

LITTLE POISON IVY In This Number

Doing Her Bit=By Gouverneur Morr! is By CHARLES E. VAN LOAN George Pattullo—Samuel
arn G. Blythe—Wallace Irwin~Peter Clark Macforlane

September 22, 1917 October 6, 1917 November 10, 1917

OPPOSITE: Soldier and French Girl. 1917. Oil on canvas, 26 x 20". Signed lower right
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 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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November 24, 1917 December 8, 1917

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

EVENING POST oS

P a4 a Sy :
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THE EARTHQUAKE-By Arthur Train . From a Camp Window-By Mary Roberts Rinehart | WARTIME WASHINGTON — By JULIAN, STREET

December 29, 1917 February 16, 1918 March 2, 1918

THE SATURDAY
_ EVEN. |

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At the Front of the Front-By Irvin S. Cobb

March 23, 1918 March 30, 1918 June 1, 1918

OPPOSITE: St. Valentine—This Is My Busy Day. 1918. Oil on canvas, 25 x 19". Signed lower right
 THE SATURDA Y | THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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June 29, 1918 July 6, 1918 July 27, 1918

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

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THE MARNE By EDITH WHARTON

Albort Pare

October 26, 1918

THE SA] URKees

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MORE THAN TWO MILLION A WEEK

CHANGE OF VENUS=~By HARRY LEON WILSON

December 7, 1918 December 21, 1918 December 28, 1918

opposite: The Minute Man. 1918. Oil on canvas, 25 x 29". Signed lower left
 is maa
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 THE SATURDAY THE SATU DAY THE SATURDAY —
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Beginning .
= a Reber R Upéngeetl— WillLow Contos A Damsel in Distress—By Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
Pee Cinta stucinriane—Cecaid Stankay Loe—Menry Waticrooa—Aibert
J.Beveridge

April 19, 1919 May 10, 1919

THE SATURI THE SATURDAY

EVEN ag, EVE OST

fo This Number
Oscar Gracve —Willinm Memikion Osborne — WiltLevingion Comfort— Irvin S.Cobb
Bibbe Termer— Albert Payson Terhune
— Somuct G,Biythe
Beginning: FREE AIR-By Sinclair Lewis Baron Rosen — Bo o— Rowland — p 3 x
Heary Paysos Dowst— Alice Ducr Miller — Will Levingtos Comfort— Heary Watterson
Menry Wausrsce — George

May 31, 1919 July 5,1919 August 23, 1919

THE SATURDAY THE SATU. DAY

_ EVENIDQQSPOST

THANKSGIVING CHR 1 Seo anos

November 1, 1919 November 29, 1919 December 27, 1919

opposite: The War Veteran. 1919. Oil on canvas, 25'/s x 18°/:". Signed lower right
J.C. LEYENDECKER
 THE SATURDAY THE SATURI}AY
EVENIN G POST
; An Illustrated Weekly
EVENING P(Q@T
Founded A°D! 1728 éy Benj. Franklin
JANUARY 24, 1920 5c. THe SOEY

Samuel G.Blythe—Ben Ames Williams—Alonzo Englebert Taylor —Maximilian Foster

Nina Wilcox Putnam— Sophie Kerr—Alfred Noyes —Nalbro Bartley— Sinclair Lewis Beginning: Con—By W.C.Crosby and Edward H.Smith. Drums of Jeopardy —By Harold MacGrath

January 3, 1920 January 24,1920 March 13, 1920

THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY

EVENEN' G z fe r G POST G POST An I Btrated We kly
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April 3,1920 June 5, 1920 July 3,1920

THE SATURDAY THE SAT DAY

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And Then On the Other Hand-By Samuel G. Blythe

September 18, 1920 October 30, 1920 November 27, 1920

OPPOSITE: June Graduate. 1920. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20". Signed lower left
THE SATURDAY SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
EVENIN' G POST ted We
POST E" Pa = DST
by Be eS eankun
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THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

January 1, 1921 March 26, 1921

THE SATURDAY
ROST

Maxwell Struthers Burt—Sani DoreDiegers— Honey‘C.Rowland—L.

c B.Yates
‘W. A.Fraser—Christine Jope Slade — Louise Dutton—Albert W.Atwood

June
0, 1921

MOB OF THREE-By HERSCHEL S. HALL ISAAC F.MARCOSSON —IRVIN S. Compe RICHARD CONNELL Ten AN RSG
vVOIgN: GC
GEORGE KIBBE TURNER ~W.A. P, JOMN~ BERTRAM ATKEY

September 3, 1921 September 24, 1921 November 26, 1921

OPPOSITE: Bass Drummer. 1921. Oil on canvas, 27'/2 x 20'/2". Monogrammed lower right
 THE SATURDAY THE aaa
@RING POST EVE OST
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Dec.312¥
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More Than Two Million and a uariee’ Weekly

December 10, 1921 December 24, 1921 December 31, 1921

SATURDAY TURDAY THE SATURDAY

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monnet Harris —Ric hard Co!

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to co OR rances Noyes Har —Ben Ames Willlams—Ele
Eilts Paskee ButlerBE:awrence Perry—H. H. Ko! ise
© FrianeUnle aes
—Roland Pert

March 18, 1922 April 15, 1922 June 24, 1922

THE SATURDAY THE Sg URBAN

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by Be a Fianklin

Sra]
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Hugh MacNoir Kabler-Eleanor Fr anklin Ede
jan—Dorotthy DeeJader Ruth Burr Sanborn—Ben Ames Willio: Sree Ra ae onMle
Sam ‘Mellman—Woods Hutchinson—Fre Irving Ande non
Beginning TUMBLEWEEDS-—By Hal G. Evarts Gordon Arthur Smith—Joseph Herges Nina Wilcox Putna:

July 29, 1922 August 26, 1922 October 14, 1922

opposite: New Year's Baby 1922 (Baby with Dove). 1921. Oil on canvas, 21'/2 x 165/.". Monogrammed lower left
 THE SATIIRDAY pte | ATURDAY
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EVER DST
| Foud
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. Mal Weston—Philip Gibbs—Will Irwin Brand Whitlock—Grace Sartwell Mason—Albert Payson Terhune
||
George Pattullo—Princess Cantacuzéne—Henry C. Rowland Hugh MacNair Kahler—William Trufant Foster—Kenyon Gambier
Ww
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November 25, 1922 December 23, 1922 December 30, 1922

| J. Hu Dutton—Percevo| 1 Gibbon Samuel G. Blythe—Cho es Gibbon—May Edginton Frederick Irving Anderson—Joseph Nergeshelmer—Hal G. Evarts—Thomas McMorrow
ze ri Captain Dieoceomie Kerr Sam Hellman—William McAdoo—' Captain Dingle—Ben Ames Williams Elsie Singmaster—Flord W. Persons—Albert W. Atwood— George

March 17, 1923 March 31, 1923 June 2, 1923

THE SATU. DAY THE SATURD

EVENING

Mary Roberts Rinehart—Ceptain Dingle —Ellen Glasgow

George Pattullo—Alice Duer Miller—Kenneth L. Roberts Samuel G. Blythe—Joseph Mer,
muel G. Blythe—Sewell Ford—Thomas McMorrow
‘d Connell—Captain Dingle—Joseph Hergesheimer Sewell Ford—George Kibbe T as Beer—Eleanor Franklin Eqan

June 30, 1923 August 25, 1923 October 6, 1923

OPPOSITE: Indian with Campfire Below. 1923. Oil on canvas, 26 x 18/2". Monogrammed lower left
 THE SATURDAY
EVENING POST
is

Austin —Frank Condon—Jam Elizabeth Frazer —Isaac F. M

andoiph Chester—Felix Isma:
Ruth Cross— Albert W. Atwor

October 27, 1923 December 1, 1923 December 22, 1923

THE SQTURDAY THE oar] IRDA THE S77 TRDA Y

EVife POST = Saat %

— dal
Ei Sa 1
DEC.29,1923, \ i

VALEN
PINES

Beginning THE PRICELESS PEARL

—By Alice Duer Miller Goret Garrett—Albert W. Atwood—Earl Derr Biggers—Norval Richardson
Hugh MacNair Kobler—M, L. Blumenthal—Roland Portwee—Sam Hellman 2 GU ea SE
December 29, 1923 February 16, 1924

THE SATURDAY
“NG POST

Julian Street-Thomas McMorrow-William Ashley Anderson

Elizabeth ShacKleton-Octavus Roy Cohen~Garet Garrett Beginning THE BLACK CARGO-By J.P. Marquand

July 5,1924 August 9, 1924 September 20, 1924

opposite: New Year's Baby 1924 (Jousting). 1923. Oil on canvas, 25's x 18'/2". Monogrammed lower right
{HE SATURDAY THE S§ZURDAY
_EVENINGROST = EVI IOST

Brigadic segs Soonrohell ~(nares

erst P.G, Wodehouse - Josephine Daskam Bacon
Mai
supeyoht Pulver - Frank Cos - Richard Washburn calla Hugh MacNair Kahler

ovember 29, 1924 December 20, 1924

THE SATU. apa24

tttenry C. Rowland
Garot Garret-Ben Amos Williams - Frooman Th ee - C.D. Willams
Kenneth L, Roberts - Maude Parker Child -Grace Sartwell Mason

January 3, 1925 March 28, 1925 April 1, 1925

THE SATURDAY THE pees ST

_ EVENJGI@ROST EVE goatee we
NOV.2 yf

THANKSGIVING
Grant R

July 4,1925 November 28, 1925 December 26, 1925

opposite: Boys Playing Marbles. 1925. Oil on canvas, 27'/2 x 19'/2". Monogrammed lower right
 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
Ev ele POST EV’ @p)posT

THE PARASITE-—By Booth Tarkington

=]
January 23,1926

THE SATURDAY

George Agnew Chamberlain—Williai

Donn Byrne—Ben Ames Willis:eared fo Winalowy —Richard Connell
Reet Wilcox Patnam=sjossph Hergeshotmer—Secretery of Labor

November 27, 1926

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4

January 1, 1927 May 7, 1927 July 2, 1927

OPPOSITE: Springtime—Little Bo Peep. 1927. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24". Monogrammed lower left
 THE SATHRDAY
_ EVENING moot

Harold MacGroth—Marris Dickson—David Lawrence—Frank Condon

Cari Leemmie—Derothy Black—Thomas Beer—Grace Sartwell Mason

August 27, 1927

December 31, 1927 April 7, 1928 June 2, 1928

THE, SATUR

Ne a BE rEeat ie
THANKSGIVING

June 30, 1928 November 24, 1928 December 22, 1928

opposite: Thanksgiving—Pilgrim and Football Player. 1928. Oil on canvas, 28 x 22". Monogrammed lower left
 THE Seat RDAY

December 29, 1928

[HE Se)

Katharine Bewsli—Blizabetts Frazer—F. Scott Fitzgerald—Joseph C. ‘Joseph itt

lergeshe! len Wille od Dense haees ee
Wesley Stout—Norman R. Raine—Louls TL.McFadden—Ray Ly:mae Wika Isaac F. Marcosson—SamuelG.Blythe—F. W. Bronson—Corra
Hai

October 19, 1929 November 23, 1929

al

Bexnnins WHEN BEGGARS RIDE=By

GeorgeAgnew Chamberlain CE ina—Beigadier Ganerat William Mitchell—Frank Mitchell Dazey
William Hazlett Upson—Bernard DeVoto- David Rosen—Albert W. Atwood

December 21, 1929 December 28, 1929 April 19, 1930

OPPOSITE: Spring—Apollo and Animals. 1929. Oil on canvas, 27°/s x 20/2". Monogrammed lower right
 Joseph Hergesheimer—Theodore Von Zickurech—Heaneth L_Roberts George Ageew
A Chamberlain—F Scott Firegerald—Wi iam Maztett =
Up:
Nunnally Johnson—Bernard DeVoto—Vincent Sheean—Henry C.Rowland Christian Gearr—William Faulkner—George F Wore BetteL Meskowit=

June 28,1930 July 26, 1930 September 6, 1930

TH} SATURDAY
V YG POSS <a
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SS
Joseph Hergesheimer—Stewart Edward White—Thomas McMorrow
THANKSGIVING IsaacF.Marcosson—J. Fran! .K Dobie—JohnR Marquand—Everett Sand:

November 22, 1930 December 20, 1930

Garet Garrett—William Hazlett Upson—!ieee —K

\—-Marjory Stoneman Douglas—Clarence Rodingion Kelland
k EEE eS sc. Pea SoE els Mekectioratic Winslow Charles Francis Coe—GeorgejeAde—Nunnally Johnson—Henry M.
CAR
LA WoltecLeoneed HH. Nason—Frenk Mitchell Dezey—Samuel G. Blythe Everett Rhod tle—Charles Wertenbaker—Lieut. Al Williams

March 14, 1931 May 23,1931 July 4, 1931

OPPOSITE: Sick in Bed. 1930. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24". Monogrammed lower right
 Arthur Stringer—Bozeman Bulger—J. P. Morquan:
E W. Bronson—Lucian Cary—Isasc F Marcosso:

November 28, 1931

CALVIN COOLIDGE-—ELEANOR MERCEIN

— CAPT. OR!
Beginning FIGHTING FOR FUN —Bs Eddie Eagan STEWART EDWARD WHITE—JAMES WEBER LIN'
| Bezinning MISS PINKERTON—By Mary Roberts Rinehart |

January 2,1932 March 5,1932 March 26, 1932

Lan ~

Garet Garrett-Clorence B. Kelland—Mary Hastings Bradley F. SCOTT FITZGERALD—THE GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER AN OLD-FASHIONED BANKER

May 14, 1932 June 4, 1932 July 2, 1932

opposite: Easter Couple. 1932. Oil on canvas, 32'/s x 247s". Monogrammed lower right
 THE S2ae-RDAY
; ST Dy ui
Pe
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seglember
Sey poi Morn
NX

GARET GARRETT - EDWIN LEFEVRE + ANNE CAMERON STEWART EDWARD WHITE — ISAAC F, MARCOSSON F.A.VANDERLIP - J. R. SPRAGUE - G. B. STERN
August 6, 1932 September 3, 1932 September 24, 1932

BEGINNING FOG A MYSTERY OF THEHIGH SEAS!

November 26, 1932 December 24, 1932 December 31, 1932

APRIL 15,'33 “a c.the Copy

JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE

—LOUIS HOWE —LOIS MONTROSS JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE
—LOUIS HOWE —LOIS MONTROSS SERED CORES ae ee

February 25, 1933 April 15,1933 July1,1933

opposite: Labor Day at the Beach. 1932. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24”. Signed lower right
 Da
nN
Buys
j THE
CAT’S-PAW
(i |
CLARENCE BUDINGTON LUCIAN CARY - STEPHEN VINCENT BENET GARET GARRETT - IRVING THALBERG - DAVID GRAY
ROSE WILDER LANE - KELLAND + GUY GILPATRIC

August 26, 1933 September 16, 1933 November 4, 1933

iE e4 URDAY
S p OST

srsus'ute RIGHT-HO, JEEVES— By P. G. WODEHOUSE

ELEANOR MERCEIN - SAMUEL G. BLYTHE - COREY FORD

December 2, 1933 December 23, 1933 December 30, 1933

THE SATU.URDAY
T
5c. THE COPY
eral

saute “— TO THE VANQUISHED*— By A.R. WYLIE “IKE” HOOVER - OLIVER LA FARGE - GUY GILPATRIC EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES - HARRY LEON WILSON

March 10, 1934 March 31, 1934 May 26, 1934

OPPOSITE: Football Hero. 1933. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24". Signed lower left
 THE NING
SPTURRAY
BOOT,

1 ¢ P

GEORGE RECTOR
ANNE CAMERON
ee ‘a

ALICE DUER MILLER

December 1, 1934
July 7, 1934

lulley _,.2 $
STEWART EDWARD WHITE + GARET GARRETT - GEORGE S. BROOKS

December 29, 1934 January 5, 1935 February 23, 1935

THENSN
SAT

OF — BANKING PANIC OF MARCH &, 1933

WALSH BY WILLIAM, STARR MYERS AND WALTER H. NEWTON
GARET GARRETT + DALTON TRUMBO + ARTHUR KOEHLER + MARTIN DIES SAMUEL G. BLYTHE + HELEN HULL - MAURICE

April 20, 1935 May 11,1935 June 8, 1935

OPPOSITE: Statue of Liberty (July 4, 1934). 1934. Oil on canvas, 32 x 25". Signed lower right
<6€e
 THE SATURDAY
me OST

em 2
GARET GARRETT - GEORGE S. BROOKS - ALVA JOHNSTON

EDWIN LEFEVRE + LOUISE KENNEDY MABIE + JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE

September 28, 1935 October 19, 1935

THE SATURDAY

FRANK H. SIMONDS - JOHN W. THOMASON, Jr. * 1. P. MCEVOY BOOTH TARKINGTON - ARTHUR TRAIN

November 23, 1935 January 4, 1936

THE SXURDAY THE S2ZURDAY

ae, DSoT
oy

LOUISJ.HOROWITZ - JAMES GOULD COZZENS FRANCIS WALLACE - GEORGE S. BROOKS

February 15,1936 April 11,1936 June 20, 1936

opposite: Saint Valentine. 1936. Oil on canvas, 30 x 24". Signed center right
 VISITING ALL WORK
FIREWOMAN AND NO
BY HEADLINES
GEORGE baBROOKS BY Gas CRISLER

CAPTAIN SNOOTY-OFF-THE-YACHT—
BY GUY GILPATRIC REGGIE AND THE GREASY. BIRD—BY P. G. WODEHOUSE

qu4,1936 October 17, 1936 November 28, 1936

THE SATE, RDA Y

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT—BY LESLIE FORD BOB FELLER—STORYBOOK BALL PLAYER

Sea tant ROGERS’ RANGERS — By KENNETH ROBERTS

December 26, 1936 January 2, 1937 February 20, 1937

Fo,
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May 15,1937 _ J a
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| BEGINNING THE ROAD TO RENO—6y |.A.A R.WYLIE secinminc DEATH ON THE NILE By AGATHA CHRISTIE CARL HUBBELL—THE MEAL TICKET

March 27, 1937 May 15, 1937 July 3, 1937

opposite: Fourth of July Flagpole. 1937. Oil on canvas, 31'/2 x 24'/.". Signed lower right
 sia
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 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY
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BEGINNING
| SEVEN MUST DIE—By JAMES WARNER BELLAH RAZZLE-DAZZLE—By FRANCIS WALLACE HUNTING GOLD FOR STALIN

September 18, 1937 November 6, 1937 December 18, 1937

, eS DO YOU WANT ete

—— $10,000 A YEAR?
| By JOSEPH ALSOP and TURNER CATLEDGE
THE WRITING IN THE SKY By MacKINLAY KANTOR

January 1, 1938 April 16, 1938

“i
el am ge ~S
secinninc THREE BRIGHT PEBBLES—By LESLIE FORD
BEGINNING BITTER CREEK—By JAMES BOYD YOUNG AMES - TUGBOAT ANNIE

August 20, 1938 October 15, 1938 November 26, 1938

opposite: Raking Leaves. 1937. Oil on canvas, 31 x 24". Signed lower right
 BEGINNING

DOC MELLHORN AND THE PEARLY GATES—BENET ARIZONA By CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

December 24, 1938 February 25, 1939

eB = IF, ; <
LE | THOMASON - WYLIE » ALEXANDER
MORGENTHAU, MASTER OF MONEY MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS + MacKINLAY KANTOR

April 1, 1939 November 25, 1939 December 23, 1939

THE S§TURDAY

GOLDEN BOY -
THE sTORY OF JJIMMY CROMWELL

IS RUSSIA WINNING CHINA TOO? oe

ORSON WELLES ByALVA

December 30, 1939 January 20, 1940 March 23, 1940

opposite: Baby's First Christmas. 1938. Oil on canvas, 31 x 24". Signed lower right
 BEGINNING

| THE STORY OF
| WILL ROGERS
By
| MRS. ROGERS
OUR ELECTION AND EUROPE’S WAR By DEMAREE BESS |

May 11, 1940 October 5, 1940

January 4,194) January 3, 1942

THE SATURDAY
EVEN, 2a@OST
& =

TIBERTY
1886-1986
ze utac they

$250,000 Reward Offered for JFK Assassin... p.4’7

Gable and Lombard Live Again The Queen of Iran Oakland Raiders’ Al Davis
Margaret Thatcher: Britain’s Next P.M.? Congress Probes Assassinations
Bicentennial Salute. New Short Story by MacKinlay Kantor

ovember 1975 August 1986

opposite: Thanksgiving 1648. 1940. Oil on canvas, 31 x 23". Signed lower right. Reproduced: American Weekly, November 1948, cover
THANKSGIVING 1648
| THE MERICAN

M2

ABOVE: The American Weekly. April 28, 1946. Printed magazine cover
RIGHT: Baby Week. 1946. Oil on canvas, 33 x 23". Signed lower right

f COLLEGE FOOTBALL, BY WALTER CAMP

BEGINNING A SERIAL NOVEL BY MAY SINCLAIR
1909 PRICE, 35 CENTS

THE CENTURY
Vou. LXXIX, No. 1 NOVEMBER,

The Century. November 1909. Printed magazine cover Football Players (College Football). 1909. Oil on canvas, 26 x 20".
Signed lower right
 The Club-Fellow & WASHINGTON MIRROR

The Club-Fellow. c. 1904. Printed magazine coyer

 OLLIER SS

pce ogee eS ER: NUMBER ¥ ~ PRICE-10-CENTS

November 1898 April 1, 1899 February 20, 1904

Collier'ss|
MARCH 5,1904
Celfier's| APRIL) 9, 1904
|Collier's
MAY 7 2% 1904

March 5, 1904 April 9,1904

Story and Pictur

ol
JUNE 18)

June 4,1904 June 18,1904 September 3, 1904

OPPOSITE: Couple on Deck Chairs. 1904. Tempera on board , 16 x16". Signed lower left
> O — Lu > Lu Fae (@ a C) NV Lu faa
 Colliers
OCTOBER 22” 1904
Colliers
NOVEMBER 19™ 1904 TAA
OEE
a
So ollier's
‘Titopore ROOSEVELT —
Two Views 9f Him ¥
HENRY WATTERSON
an

CHARLES J BONAPARTE.
"Lectioneering”
@. BOOTH TARKINGTON |

ovember 19, 1904 December 10, 1904

October 22,1904

Colliers Colliers
| THE NATIONAL WEEKLY

PAY DAY

January 21,1905 April

1,1905 January 20, 1906

Collier's Colliers
THE NATIONAL WEEKLY
: Coll il er's
NA
Fast
NJ
ALIN

May 5,1906 August 11,1906 October 6, 1906

OPPOSITE: Football Players (The Tackle). 1904. Oil on canvas, 21/4 x 19'/s". Signed lower right
eal NE,

J.C. LEYENDECKER 175

Collier's
THE NATIONAL WEEKLY

THE SPEED GOD

January 19, 1907

Automobile
Section

JAMESTOWN 1607

April 27, 1907 May 25, 1907 October 26, 1907

Colliers
THE NATIONAL WEEKLY
Pie Colliers

December 21, 1907 June 9,1908 August 28, 1909

‘

opposite: The Lady and Her Motorcar. 1906. Oil on canvas, 31 x 21". Signed lower right
 Ilier’s
52 copy

‘olli ~_ "g
MeL WEEKLY PNAL WEEKLY
for May 30, 1914 for September 12,1914

Mexico’s Army
and Ours | The Siege
S
of
The Conquest
ee Pet,
ge By Jack London Liege
Se the Pole

The Reply of the By George Lynch

The Fight for Water Bluejackets
in the West
Drawn by Henry Reuterdahl
The German
Abroad at Home War Lust
By Julian Street
By Robert Crozier Long

My Mission
and Betrayal
\. in England
By
Dr. Armgaard
Karl Graves

October 16, 1909 May 30,1914 September 12, 1914

Colliers THE NATIONAL

Now. 28, 1914
WEEKLY
|
Colliers:
THE NATIONAL WEEKLY

BASEBALL STORIES BY GRANTLAND ‘RICE AND F. E. EVANS TAB :

THE PLATTSBURG IDEA BY RICHARD HARDING bi | THE R OU N D
| “The Miracle Man’s Own Story” By Gourge T. Ssallzags
BY RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD
ms oe Je. = ae - i

November 28, 1914 October 9, 1915 December 01, 1915

Ga copy | Ay ¢a copy

ier’s
7 8, 1916 June 24, 1916

THE HVS
PRISONER’S DEFENSE
RUARHURT OONANGD ONDE A POINT OF ETIQUETTE by WILLIAM ALMON WOLFF “ImthisZane GolfStorybyChavesE.Van Loan
ager oes Seg as ‘ F Edgar Wallace —James William Fitrectrict —Robert Du

January 8, 1916 June 24,1916 September 23, 1916

opposite: German Soldier. 1914. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21". Signed lower left
 conte a copy
5 aus 10 le

THE CRISSCROSS, a Football Story by GUY W. NORTON AUTOMOBILE NUMBER

In This Issue: GRANTLAND RICE, ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE,
THE MEANING OF YERDUN by WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
JULIAN STREET, HOLWORTHY HALL, AND JOHN MOROSO

October 14, 1916 November 18, 1916 January 16, 1917

cents a copy
preente a copy 5 cente a copy 55July 71917
D Aprit 14 1917 8, 1917

inna
MORE THAN A MILLION COPIES A WEEK LOWERING THE HIGH COST OF LIVING by AGNES C. LAUT
WHY TD LET MY BOY GO TO WAR |

April14,1917 April 28, 1917 July 7, 1917

“YNORS -+han a Trillion a Wee m cents a copy

oN iecemnber18,1917

®& REPORTER'S DIARY by RING W, LARDNER The Road

To London ae. Weigat Above ors
ey James B.oon Gy James Hopper Wythe Williams
- W.S.M°Nutt ~ Samuel Hopkins Adams
FORCING THE WAR INTO THE AIR by CARL
James
B. Connolly -Edwin Balmer - Walter Camp

sees 29,1917 November 10, 1917 January 5, 1918

opposite: Air Force Pilot. 1917. Oil on canvas, 27 x 20". Signed lower right
 = ed - 17 = AASUARY. 1897,

THE INEAND
PRINTEREZ
JANUARY

November 1896 December 1896

MARGH, 1897. PRIGE, 20 GESTS.

a a Soalane
al
OMe
uu LUUNS

kK THE INLAND, PRINTER |COMPANY. PUBLISHERS. CHICAGO. U.S A.

February 1897 March 1897

JOLY, 1697. TWENTY CENTS

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Jue we ¥
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(ot wy yt

July 1897 August 1897

 ost aca
= 7.
Poster from artwork for The Inland Printer,
December 1901 issue

Judge. c. 1905. Printed magazine cover

TILIAVILY 7) VUINTAE
. : bi ; Ser E

Theliterary Digest
PUBLIC OPINION (NewYork) combined with THE LITERARY DIGEST Gar
° ONLY

Vol. 51, No. 26, Whole No. 1340 DecemBER 25, 1915 Price 10 Cents

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

LEFT: Lady in Grecian
Gown Draping Flowers
(study). 1903. Gouache,
watercolor, conté and
ink on board, 115/e x 15'/e"
Signed, inscribed, and
dated verso. The Liter-
\
ary Digest. December
mcotage
asm
acni
air eben
scree
EN 25, 1915. Printed maga-
Th1
zine cover. Lady Diving.
a
5
1910. Oil on canvas, 16 x
12". Signed lower right.
Reproduced: The Pitts-
burgh Dispatch Monthly
os:E SoA
gee
Magazine, June 12, 1910,
cover. The Literary
Digest. April 25, 1908.
Printed magazine cover

OPPOSITE: Couple on
Raft. 1909. Oil on canvas

"FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Piblshers 30 x 20". Signed lower

left and inscribed, “To
New York and London My Friend W. H. Haines/
ae hs Sincerely, J. C. Leyen-
Vol. XXXIX., No, 42, Whole No. so12 New York, SEPTEMBER II, 1909 Price 10 Cents
decker.” Reproduced:
Popular Magazine,
August 1909, cover
 es “- : a a ae _ é PY x “er , ]

ORTES BY ARTHUR STRINGER

RALPH D.PAINE & ROY NORTON

Nea
ec
The Popular Magazine. March 1909. Printed magazine cover

186 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 “FIRST
MAYQuT-APRIL
NUMBER
0/3

Out or Safe? April 10, 1910. Printed magazine cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER
ABOVE: The Garden Walk. Success. June 1904. Printed
magazine cover

RIGHT: The Garden Walk. 1904. Tempera on board, 21’/s x

15'/:". Signed lower left

188 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 FEBRUARY |
1905 iy

New ¥

ABOVE: Success. February 1905. Printed magazine cover

LEFT: Victorian Lady at the Opera. 1905. Oil on canvas on

board, 26 x 18" (oval). Signed lower left

J.C. LEYENDECKER 189

 DOUBLE CHRISTMAS NUMBER ivess

SUCCESS

ABOVE: Success. December 1908. Printed magazine cover

LEFT: Embracing Grandma. 1908. Oil on canvas, 24 x 16".

Signed lower right

OPPOSITE: Colonial Couple under the Mistletoe. 1905.

Oil on canvas, 22 x 15'/.". Signed lower left. Reproduced: J.C. LEYENDECKER 19]
Success, December 1905, cover
 “The Three Misses Benedict,” by Mrs. Burton Harrison, in This Number

NOVEMBER FIVE CENTS

\WoMANS FIOME (OMPANION

\W/OMAN'S OME (OMPANION®
EAS TE R NVMBER

MAST. CROWELL& KIRKPATRICKG®

Woman’s Home Companion. November 1897. Printed magazine cover Woman's Home Companion. April 1898. Printed magazine cover

192 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 ifTHE FAIR GIRL-QUEEN OF oes |
IN THIS NUMBER | THE STORY OF THE RED CROSS.....

MAST, ‘CROWELL-& KIRKPATRICK. PUBLISHERS

Woman's Home Companion. September 1898. Printed magazine cover Woman's Home Companion. December 1898. Printed magazine cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER 193

 THE WOMANS
E
MAGA ZINLOUIS
SAINT |

ABOVE: The Woman's Magazine ofSt. Louis. July 1910.

Printed magazine cover

RIGHT: Golf or Tennis? 1910. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21". Signed

lower ht

ee
a

opposite: The World’s Work. November 1901. Printed

194 J.C. LEVENDECKER magacinelcover

 VOLUME Il;
N°13. WO RK: PRICE 25 CENTS
| NOVEMBER I9OI. 300 A YEAR.

|
|
|

J.C, LEYENDECKER

DOUBLEDAY. PAGE & COMPANY. NEW YORK.

 New Year’s « Baby
While the Arrow Collar Man was seminal in the business world, the New Year’s Baby
was perhaps J.C. Leyendecker’s greatest contribution to global iconography. He invented
the notion of a baby ringing in the New Year for a December 1906 Saturday Evening Post
cover. Joe’s first New Year’s Baby was actually a cherub with small wings, an illustration
that immediately caught the public’s fancy. Subsequently, for almost forty years every
January issue of The Saturday Evening Post had a Leyendecker New Year's Baby on the
cover. Throughout America, people anxiously awaited the Post’s new Baby cover, and
the magazine itself became as much a tradition as the mirrored ball dropping in Times
Square. Globally, Leyendecker’s New Year’s Baby became as popular as Santa Claus. It is
now embraced as a worldwide symbol for a new beginning and a fresh future.
Notable examples of J.C. Leyendecker New Year's Babies include his 1931 Post cover,
where the baby is seen forging his way out of the Great Depression, and one from 1940, in
which the baby wears a gas mask, indicating the horrors of World War II.

Top: New Year's Baby 1908. 1907. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20". Signed lower right. ABOVE: New Year's Baby 1940. 1939. Oil on canvas, 31'/2 x24". Signed lower left.
Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1907, cover Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, December 30, 1939, cover

ABOVE: New Year's Baby 1917. 1916. Oil on canvas, 24 x 18'/2". Signed lower opposite: New Year's Baby 1931. 1930. Oil on canvas, 32 x 24". Monogrammed lower
right. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, December 30, 1916, cover left. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, December 27, 1930, cover

PAGE 198: New Year's Baby 1925. 1924. Oil on canvas, 28'/4 x 20'/.". Monogrammed
lower right. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, January 3, 1925, cover

PAGE 199: New Year's Baby 1938. 1937. Oil on canvas, 31/2 x 24". Signed lower right.
Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, January 1, 1908, cover
196 J.C. LEYENDECKER
J.C. LEYENDECKER 197
 Mother's Day + Flowers
Mother’s Day was never intended to be commercially celebrated. Yet today, the
Mother’s Day holiday virtually sustains florists and generates sales of over 425 million
greeting cards annually, 125 million more than the United States population. Mother’s
Day was originally conceived by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910). Distraught over the
senseless carnage and splitting up of families during the Civil War, the prominent
social activist, editor, and author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic released in 1870 a
Mother’s Day Proclamation calling for an international day to celebrate peace and
motherhood. It was not until Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) campaigned for the creation
of a national day of observance in honor of motherhood and peace, however, that the
holiday actually came about. The first official observance was May 10, 1908; national
recognition did not come until May 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the
holiday into law.
Leyendecker was assigned the Post cover for the nation’s newest national holiday.
He decided to use flowers as a gift, instantly creating an American tradition. Not so
coincidently, it was just after Leyendecker completed his beloved Mount Tom gardens,
which in the springtime were coming into bloom. Flowers were a logical, sensitive, and
beautifully appropriate gift for a mother, and besides, the gender bias of the day assumed
that all women loved to putter in their gardens.
After seeing Leyendecker’s Post cover (Bellhop with Hyacinths), America immediately
embraced the ritual of giving flowers on the second Sunday in May, erupting into an
incredible boon for florists. The fascination with the celebration has grown each year.
Mother’s Day, like so many American holidays, is now celebrated internationally, and
flowers are offered everywhere without either giver or recipient aware that the original
impetus was a J.C. Leyendecker magazine cover.

Christmas « Santa’s Persona

Thomas Nast (1840-1902), a notable eighteenth-century illustrator dubbed the “Father of
Political Cartooning,” has often been acknowledged as the creator of our popular image
of Santa Claus. Nast, like Leyendecker, was born in the Rhineland-Palatinate. His first
Santa—slender with a scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard—appeared climbing into a
chimney on an 1863 Harper’s Weekly cover. Over time, Nast’s Santa Claus changed from
an elflike creature to a gangly old man, and he went through many variations on that age-
old theme.
In truth, Santa Claus’s image has been evolving since the time ofthe real Saint
Nicholas in the fourth century a.p. It was not until J.C. Leyendecker interpreted him with
finality—and with a specific uniform—that Santa became a brand unto himself. Everyone
embraced J.C. Leyendecker’s Santa Claus, our Santa Claus. Leyendecker took his elements
directly from the 1823 poem “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke
Moore. A guest had read the poem at one of the annual Mount Tom Christmas parties,
Bellhop with Hyacinths. 1914. Oil on canvas,
28 x 20". Signed lower right. Reproduced:
enthralling Joe with the intensity and charm of the reading. Suddenly Santa appeared
Saturday Evening Post, May 30, 1914, cover as arotund fellow with rosy red-tipped nose and cheeks, a belly which shook “like a

200 J.C. LEYENDECKER

IKE,1k YENDECKER 20)
202 JKGeE YENDECKER
bowlful ofjelly,” and a red costume with white fur trim. Prior to Leyendecker,
interpretations of Santa’s outfits ranged from red to green, blue and purple; there was no
consistency in the way he was portrayed.
While for many years, illustrator Haddon Hubert Sundblom (1899-1976) was credited
with having depicted Santa Claus as we know him, it is clear that he derived his concept
from J.C. Leyendecker’s image, which predated Sundblom’s considerably. Sundblom had
simply reconfirmed Leyendecker’s 1912 Santa in the 1930s for some advertising pieces he
was commissioned to undertake for the Coca-Cola Corporation. Sundblom, with great
business acumen, adopted Joe’s use of the red and white suit primarily because they
were Coca-Cola’s corporate colors. To satisfy his client, Sundblom used Santa annually
thereafter in Coke ads wearing Joe’s red and white. Additionally, he appropriated all the
other specific attributes invented by Leyendecker. Massive advertising campaigns at
holiday time helped Coca-Cola rise to become the ubiquitous American drink, along with
the tagline, “the Claus that refreshes.”

Thanksgiving » Football & Homecoming

Since Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony first proclaimed in the
seventeenth century the need for a special day dedicated to “giving thanks,” debates
engendered over which symbol was most suited to the Thanksgiving holiday. Fall
foliage, Indians helping Pilgrims, the Mayflower were all appealing, uncontroversial
suggestions, and all had their proponents, but eventually the turkey surpassed every
other. Leyendecker, a great turkey lover himself, created many variations on the turkey
theme, portraying, for example, a Pilgrim carrying a squawking fowl to decapitation, a
grandmother roasting the bird, and Pilgrims and Native Americans together with
turkeys. His greatest Thanksgiving success came, however, when he complemented
that singular symbol with another, even more popular one—football—as a secondary
theme for his Saturday Evening Post covers, creating in the process another uniquely
American tradition.
The popularity of the sport had erupted after 1900, when Leyendecker’s depictions
of football players from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard appeared on
the covers of Collier's, The Century, The Saturday Evening Post, and other periodicals. His
handsome footballers, shown wrestling, provoking one another, ripping shirts off,
muscles and other body parts protruding, were hugely popular with all segments ofthe
American public. Years later, with the game ensconced in the collective consciousness
TOP: World War | Santa. 1918. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21".
and nearing baseball’s popularity, Joe conjoined it with Thanksgiving as a specific Signed lower right. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
holiday theme. December 7, 1918, cover

Leyendecker’s November 24, 1928, Post cover counterbalanced a weary, battle- ABOVE: Startled Pilgrim. 1920. Oil on canvas, 26'/2 x 19'/2".
Signed lower right. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
fatigued player with torn jersey coupled with a genteel Pilgrim, carrying a Bible anda November 27, 1920, cover
gun (see page 147). This endearing, homoerotic juxtaposition of sensitivity and OPPOSITE: Twas the Night Before Christmas (Boy on
roughhousing infatuated the readers. It also augmented the customary turkey dinner Santa’s Lap). 1923. Oil on canvas, 28 x 21". Signed and in-
scribed lower left: “To Richard Wyndham Hoffman from
with physical activity, something which no other holiday offered. Football at Thanksgiving his Friend—J.C. Leyendecker.” Reproduced: Saturday
took off like a rocket. Colleges scheduled contests with their traditional archrivals for Evening Post, December 22, 1923, cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER 203

 that day in order to enhance and heighten interest in their particular games. This in
turn drew school loyalists “back home” for the battle of the year. “Homecoming” became a
formal event on campuses thereafter, and this too, can be directly attributed
to J.C. Leyendecker.

Independence Day - Firecrackers

Independence Day, celebrated on the fourth day of July, has been taken very seriously
since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. It commemorates America’s
Top: A Turkey for Thanksgiving. 1939. Oil on
canvas, 31 x 24". Signed lower left. Reproduced: separation from England and recognizes fierce battles fought for freedom from colonial
Saturday Evening Post, November 25, 1939,
cover
masters. In the early days of rejoicing, real guns and cannons were fired, causing
hundreds of deaths across the country. Celebrations were usually government-based with
ABOVE: Bringing in the Turkey. 1933. Oil
on canvas, 32 x 24". Signed lower center. reenactments of battles and bonfires creating battlefield atmospheres, replete with the
Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, December
speeches by political leaders and the firing of weapons. In 1900, the public pleaded with
2, 1933, cover
the government for a “safe and sane Fourth.” Politicians, taking heed oftheir constituents,
ABOVE RIGHT: A Turkey for Thanksgiving (study).
1939. Oil on canvas, 23°/s x 23°/s". Unsigned futilely joined the call to wrest away weapons as the means for celebration.

204 J.C. LEYENDECKER

Thanksgiving—Indian Bartering with Pilgrim. 1923. Oil on canvas,
26 x 20". Monogrammed lower left. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
December 1, 1923

J.C. LEYENDECKER 205

206 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 THE SATURDAY THE SATURDAY _ THE SATURDAY
EVENING POST EVENING POST
aaa

EVENING POST An Illustrated Weekly An Illustrated Weekly An Illustrated Weekly

by Benj. Franklin Founded AgZ 28 Sy Benj. Franklin Founded A°D¥ 1728 4y Benj. Franklin
uur 3, 1915 Fete THECOPY

ae
re

Se

THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS-—By Mary Roberts Rinchart

More Than a Million and Three-Quarters Circulation Weekly | Stories and Articles by OWEN WISTER, NORMAN DUNCAN, JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE
WOODS HUTCHINSON, PELHAM GRENVILLE WODEHOUSE, CORINNE LOWZ, EDWIN LEFEVRE

What the politicians could not do by means ofyears of speechifying, Leyendecker THE SATURDAY
accomplished with a single image. By featuring on a Saturday Evening Post cover what
had been hitherto a small part of the festivities, he launched the firecracker into
EVENING POST An Ilustreg— wok ly Magazine
Founded A‘4\ Yenj. Franklin

new prominence as integral to the Fourth ofJuly celebration. (As with all his work, ii Be. Toe COPY

Leyendecker put his unique slant on his Fourth ofJuly covers; his image of Uncle Sam with
a firecracker under his bottom was the most irreverent and the humor purely American.)
After its successful appearance, a rage for firecrackers—salutes, cherry bombs, and
sparklers—took hold. New industries were born, legal and illegal, professional firecracker
igniters were hired for large celebrations, and amateurs were blowing off their fingers and
blinding themselves instead ofkilling each other.
With a Leyendecker cover promoting it, the use of firecrackers was given the Saturday
Evening Post stamp of approval, meaning that all America approved. Pyrotechnics on
the Fourth ofJuly caught on, and the firecracker has served as a symbol of national
independence ever since.

More Than a Million and a Half Circulation Weekly

Seasons and Mid-Season + Themes
With the public anxiously awaiting each holiday number of the Post, the editors selfishly TOP LEFT: Saturday Evening Post. July 1, 1911. Printed
magazine cover
but cleverly recognized that they could increase circulation even further if there were more
TOP CENTER: Saturday Evening Post. July 6, 1912.
of them to celebrate. They pushed the government via editorials to declare more holidays, but Printed magazine cover
_ with employers rebelling, both politicians and the public realized that there had to be a limit. TOP RIGHT: Saturday Evening Post. July 3, 1915. Printed
Obviously, while the Post tried, it could not invent holidays, so when J.C. Leyendecker suggested magazine cover

painting the four seasons, the editors seized onto the idea. And so Leyendecker provided the ABOVE: Saturday Evening Post. July 2, 1910. Printed
magazine cover
magazine with another four record-breaking issues during the course of every year.
OPPOSITE: Saturday Evening Post. July 5, 1924. Printed
While classical allegorical treatments of the seasons had been undertaken by painters,
magazine cover
sculptors, poets, and composers for centuries, the only art most of mainstream America

JC, LEYENDECKER 207

RIGHT: Interrupted Picnic.
1933. Oil on canvas, 31
x 24". Monogrammed
lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post,
August 26, 1933, cover
ummer
OPPOSITE: Farewell to ;
Summer. 1934. Oil on
canvas, 31 x 24". Signed
lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post,
September 15, 1934,
cover

208 J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. LEYENDECKER 209
RIGHT: Saturday Evening Post. May 11, 1940.
Printed magazine cover

FAR RIGHT: Saturday Evening Post. September 3, OUR ELECTION AND EUROPE’S WAR By DEMAREE BESS MOB OF THREE-By HERSCHEL S. HALL
1921. Printed magazine cover

was exposed to on the subject were Leyendecker’s images. Soon after those seasonal
successes, Leyendecker suggested ways to increase the number from four to eight seasonal
issues with his indelible art, humor, and milestone-setting themes. Thus he conceived
“Summer” (see Interrupted Picnic, August 26, 1933) and then its converse, Farewell to
Summer (September 15, 1934). He stretched “Spring” out with Spring Cleaning (May 11,
1940) and in the process elevated that abhorred chore to near-holiday status. Just before
“Fall,” Joe devised a Back to School theme (September 3, 1921), and this notion too worked
its way into the communal acceptance. The public literally bought it, bought it all: Post
subscriptions rose beyond the publishers’ wildest dreams. Four more holidays became
eight, and then eleven more guaranteed successful covers during the course ofa year.

Labor Day » The Working Man

Honoring the workingman and all working people, this legal holiday is observed on the
first Monday in September, as a day of
rest and recreation. It is also considered the day
that demarcates summer’s end.
In 1882, the founder of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters proposed it as a national
holiday and organized a parade to make the point. Leyendecker, although not political at
all, took advantage of the strong image of a powerful worker, sometimes sitting astride the
globe, to project the message of American strength to the world, particularly during World
War II (and afterward, to reiterate the point). His depictions of the American working man
were as powerful as any Soviet Realist images promoted by the Communist Party in Russia
or Eastern Europe. At the same time, they were astonishingly parallel to Fascist images of
blonde Teutonic warriors as marshaled by Albert Speer and the other Nazi propagandists
and photographed by Leni Riefenstahl. His Labor Day covers were the closest Joe ever
OPPOSITE: The American Weekly. September 1,
1946. Printed magazine cover came to making a political statement, visually or otherwise.

210 J.C. LEYENDECKER

+ E “The Nation's Reading Habit’
H Magazine Section—Boston Advertiser
Copyright, 1946, by American Weekly, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

E p KU Week of Sept. |, 1946

 BOOK ILLUSTRATION
Despite the axiom of old, there is no question that a book is judged by its cover. And
editors still invoke the cover to try to give potential readers a sense of what they will find
within. Marketing managers, on the other hand, care only to sell books, and to them the
cover is their primary tool. To this end a plethora of studies have been commissioned to
guide marketing decisions and cover design.
Leyendecker did not have the benefit of such studies, but he quickly realized another
popular age-old axiom, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” His clients benefited
from additional factors—Joe’s uncanny, instinctive creativity, and the popularity of the
Leyendecker Look. When describing his success in creating images that worked for his
clients, in a brief, unusual comment to a New York newspaper, he stated succinctly that a
cover or an advertisement “is like a poster and therefore like a poster it should tell its story
ona single flat plane, as if pasted to a wall board. They exist as single flat planes in any
case. A cover or a poster or an advertisement should be devoid of perspective and distance
should only appear in the abstract and the artist should never have to explain its content.”"
Unlike inside art, the cover must tell a whole story in a single image and sell the magazine
or book on which it is placed.
Never really interested in books per se as a vehicle for his artworks, Leyendecker was
nevertheless thrust into book illustrations from an early age when, prior to receiving any
formal training, he painted erudite Bible illustrations for Powers Brothers, a J.Manz
Company client. As his career developed, primarily creating advertisements, magazine
covers, and inside illustrations for periodicals, he also worked between these assignments
on a small group of very diverse books. While his pictures were well received by authors
and publishers, books clearly did not have the impact he sought. Unlike the instant
gratification he received from periodicals and commercial commissions, which were seen
everywhere and spread his reputation overnight, books took more time to appear in the
public domain. With their small fees and omniscient and overbearing publishers who
attempted to stifle his creative spirit, or so he believed, they were also more frustrating
to produce.
Titles of books illustrated by J.C. Leyendecker include Vendetta or the Story of One
Forgotten (1886), One Fair Daughter (1895), Dolly Dialogues (1895), Ships That Pass in the Night
(1898), The Kiss of Glory (1902), Love Songs from the Wagner Operas (1902), Pit: The Epic of the
Wheat (1903), Ridolfo (1906), Iole and Mortmain (1907), The Crimson Conquest (1907), Get Rich
Quick Wallingford (1908), The Voice in the Rice (1910), and The Lonely Guard (c. 1912).

212 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 “Quick!" Cristoval whispered, “They are upon us!”

ABOVE: Crimson Conquest (by Charles Bradford

Hudson). 1907. Printed book illustration

LEFT: The Crimson Conquest. 1907. Printed book

cover

J.C. LEYENDECKER 213

 1) Qe
MI od
OF THE DAWN

IN THE BANQUET HALL

The sunlight caught in its golden shaft the pair of lovers, offsetting her glistening gown
against his regal robe. Page aho

ABOVE LEFT: Ridolfo, The Coming of the

Dawn: A Tale of the Renaissance (by
Egerton R. Williams, Jr.). 1906. Printed
book cover

LEFT: In the Banquet Hall (from Ridolfo).

THE RESCUE OF GISMONDA 1906. Printed book illustration
Her intended destroyer had gone before her to the world unknown. Pago 198

ABOVE: The Rescue of Gismonda (from

=e i : Ridolfo). 1906. Printed book illustration
 GET RICH-QUICK
WALLINGFORD
GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER

ABOVE : Get Rich Quick Wallingford. 1907.

Oil on canvas, 18 x 18". Signed lower right
ABOVE RIGHT: Get Rich Quick Wallingford
(by George Randolph Chester). 1908.
Printed book cover

RIGHT: Japan: Her Strength & Her Beauty.

1904. Printed book cover
ABOVE: The Kiss of Glory (by Grace Duffie
oylan). 1902. Printed book cover
RIGHT: Antony and Cleopatra (from The
Kiss of Glory). 1902. Gouache on board,
24 x 15". Signed lower left

GE EYENDECKER:

216 J.C, LEYENDECKER

 THEeVG@ICE
-N THE RICE

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

ABOVE: The Voice in the Rice (by

Gouverneur Morris). 1909. Printed book
cover

LEFT: Man and Woman in Canoe (from The

Voice in the Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas,
29 x 21". Monogrammed lower left.
Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post,
June 1909

J.C. LEYENDECKER IMI

a
 LEFT: Caught in the Act of the Plan (from
The Voice in the Rice). 1909. Oil on board,
19 x 28". Signed lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, June 1909

BELOW: The Wedding (from The Voice in

the Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas, 15 x 28".
Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, June 1909

J.C. LEYENDECKER 219

OPPOSITE: “The Raven” (by Edgar Allan Poe). Date
unknown. Charcoal pencil and gouache on paper,
9217, x 18". Sisned lower risht
 2;
=
——

aero
x e CNRa
=
Sgn.

ABOVE: Man in Pajamas (from The Voice in the

Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas, 26'/2 x 20'/2". Signed
lower right
ABOVE RIGHT: Man in Mirror (from. The Voice
in the Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas, 31x 21"
Monogrammed lower right

RIGHT: Lady with Parasol (from The Voice

in the Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas, 18'/2 x 24".
Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, June 1909

OPPOSITE: Two Men Fighting (from The Voice

in the Rice). 1909. Oil on canvas, 31 x 21".
Monogrammed lower right. Reproduced:
Saturday Evening Post, June 1909
2 J.C. LEYENDECKER
 ABOVE: Consolation (from A Victory
Unforeseen). 1905. Oil on canvas laid down on
board, 25 x 17". Signed lower right. Reproduced:
Scribner's, July 1905

LEFT: The Crew Were Borne on Tossing (from A

Victory Unforeseen). 1905. Oil on canvas, 30'/2 x
22". Signed lower right. Reproduced: Scribner’s,
July 1905

OPPOSITE: Squatted on the Boathouse Floor (from

A Victory Unforeseen by Ralph D. Paine). 1905. Oil
on canvas, 28 x 21". Signed lower right. Reproduced:
Scribner's, July 1905

J.C. LEYENDECKER 225

 POSTERS: THE PEOPLE’S ART
Posters as an art form were truly the genius ofJules Chéret.
While posters historically existed from just after the French
Revolution in 1789, Chéret used pictorial posters as a marketing
scheme for his lithographic skills to earn a living and inundated
the city of Paris, plastering walls wherever he could. In 1889,
the Exposition Jules Chéret was held at the Galeries du Théatre
d’Application, the first one-person poster exhibition. The event
took place just a few years prior to the Leyendecker brothers
arriving in France. It heralded Chéret’s new business in a
bold light, elevating posters to something more than graffiti-
aaa , like incursions and a nuisance. It gave credence to that which
originally was considered an attractive marketing gimmick.
Chéret revealed his thoughts, “To wrest the street from the gray
and bleak monotony of buildings strung in long rows; to cast
upon them the fireworks of color, the glow of joy; to convert
their walls into decorable surfaces and let this open air museum
reveal the character of a people and at the same time become the
subconscious . . . public taste.”
Leyendecker seized this valuable lesson, realizing that poster
art had the same goal as cover art. Both were advertising with
art. The major difference from a technical standpoint was that
the end product was often printed in different sizes on different
paper.
He was immediately attracted to “show posters” announcing
circuses, expositions and exhibitions, concerts, and sporting
events. Then other uses became popular, and he began producing posters for military
recruiting, on political themes, for victim aid, and for selling business services,
periodicals, and all sorts of products, including Arrow Collars.
Like his Saturday Evening Post covers and his other iconic images, the Leyendecker
poster is a record ofits times. It is content and artistic merit clashing and merging into a
single message.

ABOVE: Vinegar Joe Stillwell. 1944. Oil on canvas,

23 x 16". Monogrammed lower right. War
Bonds poster
LEFT: Weapons for Liberty. 1917. Ink on paper,
29'/s x 19 2". U.S.A. War Bonds advertisement
OPPOSITE: Join the U.S. Marines. 1918. Recruiting
advertisement

224 J.C. LEYENDECKER

ENLIST TODAY

wa 9

~ JOIN FOR TWO, THREE or FOUR YEARS

FOR FULL INFORMATION APPLY AT

24 East 23rd Street, New York City

i
fp
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t

Service, Travel, Tacle:

Tk
NAVY PAY RAISED
~Bonus for former Navy Men
TES_ eis Aepcy . oe
PNTING aig aSTAION
D STA
UNITENIST RATION Navy <3 a
FUEL ADMI
rop: U.S. Navy—America Calls. 1917. Printed advertise-
vent. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, July 7, 1917

ABOVE: Order Coal Now. Printed U.S. Fuel Administration

poster

ABOVE RIGHT: Navy Recruitment advertisement. 1918.

Printed advertisement

opposite: The Pageant and Masque of Saint Louis. May

1914. Printed advertisement
 \ =<a a N ek1/9
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JOHN H. GUNDLACH THE PAGEANT Written and Directed THOMAS WOOD STEVENS.
Masic Directed by NOEL POEPPING. WILLIAM W. LaBEAUME
Chairman Written by PERCY MACKAYE. Chairman
_Execative Comantce THE MASQUE *
DirectedbyPEECY MACKAYE ard JOSEPH LINDON SMITH.
‘Masic Composed
by FREDERICK S.CONVERSE.
Productions Committee
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LEYENDECKER AND THE AMERICAN IMAGISTS:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Ittustration is now accepted and credited for truly being the most American
of American art. Yet despite its obvious influence, it has long received short
shrift by the fine arts establishment. In considering this situation, Paul
Josefowitz, Legion of Honor winner (2005) and former publisher ofthe
British fine arts magazine Apollo, has proposed that this oversight may be due to the simple
fact that illustrators were not joined under a unifying name, indicating their common
purpose. Contrarily, European artists, for example, always in a rage to market their wares,
named art movement after art movement, primarily for marketing purposes, and only
secondarily for inspirational consideration. Grouping artists under a name and allowing
them to create within a defined framework satisfied the establishment and enabled the
buying public to get a handle on the artistic intent. Romanticism, Symbolism, Modernism,
Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, and Surrealism are but a few such titles that
permitted galleries to better market their wares.
Imagine if you will that those artists who created the greatest iconic images during
the Golden Age of American II]lustration had united under the name of “American
Imagists.” The most noted artist-illustrators of this period knew each other as colleagues
or classmates; they lived and worked nearby each other in the Brandywine, New England,
New York City, or New Rochelle. They sustained one another, sharing clients, models, and
sometimes lovers. Many of them subscribed to similar design systems. They recognized
each other’s styles and emulated the strongest and most successful among themselves.
Although rarely did American artist-illustrators exhibit together, they were united by a
common aim.
As in painting, there was a group of Anglo-American writers and poets in the early
twentieth century known as les Imagistes or “The Imagists” who shared a camaraderie
and common purpose. Ezra Pound, editor of
the 1914 book Des Imagistes, was a prime
proponent of Imagism, and the de facto movement leader. Other notable members ofthe
group included Hilda Doolittle, Ford Maddox Ford, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Amy
Lowell, W. B. Yeats, and William Carlos Williams. The Imagists existed as a group from
1905 until 1930, rejecting leftover remnants ofthe syrupy sentimentality of nineteenth-
Man Reading in Circle. 1916. Oil on canvas, 29 x
century poetry and literature of Victorian and Romantic writings, the most prevalent 20". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement

229)
 in their time. They believed passionately in an artistic notion of modern life, that one
should hold a view and seldom let it blur. They were steadfast and successful, similar in
philosophy to the greatest American illustrators in underlying thoughts regarding their
work.
ndecl, >=
If there were such a group as the American Imagists, J.C. Leyendecker, though
» foreign born, would be the de facto leader. He was a powerful influence on his colleagues,
many of whom, Norman Rockwell in particular, molded their careers after him. As with
other definitive art and literary movements, American Imagist individuals were unique,
achieving stylistic and technical feats all their own while continuing to share common
origins and goals.
The literary Imagists were influenced by European literature classics and Asian
poetry. The American Imagists were likewise influenced by classical painting techniques
taught by Royal Academicians such as Bougereau and Constant, teachers to J.C.
Leyendecker. He, too, was influenced by the Asian art to which he was exposed while
studying in Europe, especially the Japanese prints that were so popular at the time.
The Imagists felt that they should transmit their works in ways that clearly expressed
their feelings in order to ensure that readers would understand the meaning without
having to guess at an author’s intentions. Interestingly, Ezra Pound defined an “image” as
“that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex, in an instant of time.” The
American Imagists did just that: definition was their inherent goal. Their very purpose
in creating illustrations was to elucidate a subject or persuade a viewer. A cover image
was intended to sell a book or a magazine: in order to do so, the picture had to be grasped
instantly, the whole story told in a flash of an eye. “The amateur draws an illustration,
and offers it as a cover,” Leyendecker once said, “whereas a cover at its best is truly a
poster, more related to murals or sculpture than to illustration. It should tell its story on
one plane, without realistic perspective and distance. And that story should be told in
pantomime, without explanatory legend.””
Like the Imagists in literature, the American Imagists naturally believed in certain
professional tenets as initially taught by Howard Pyle: experience the environment
which one intends to illustrate, use authentic costumes and props, and properly research
historical antecedents to bring near reality to the audience. Such canons were universally
accepted so that illustrators would produce images with quality, truth, and beauty as their
underlying motives.
Illustrators believed in using common settings to express evolving social moods and
to create new visual goals for an emerging nation. They believed in defining a subject so
the viewers could without question concentrate on the essence of visual messages. Such
notions are the quintessence of all great art, but often disguised or discarded by effete
painters.
Unlike easel artists, American Imagists were not merely inspired to paint by a white
OPPOSITE: Merry Christmas from Kuppenheimer canvas, a luscious nude model, and a dusty bottle of absinthe. The American Imagists
1924. Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 30'/2
comprised a discrete school with comprehensive technical abilities. They created paintings
X 25'/.". Signed lower left. House of Kuppen-
heimer advertisement with strict parameters: specific assignments with deadlines, assigned subject matter,

250 J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. LEYENDECKER 23)
 mediums, and materials, even size and shape of canvas
and other guidelines dictated by clients. Yet while working
within such tight constraints, they documented our
history, illustrated our idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, and
strengths—and created iconic images in the process.
Still, easel painters and Golden Age illustrators had
more in common than they had differences. They studied
the same subjects, taught by the same instructors, in the
same art schools. The main distinction between them
was that illustrators created paintings with the express
intention of having them reproduced. As a result, J.C.
Leyendecker and his colleagues were extraordinarily
successful, in terms of both fame and fortune, while
most easel artists were not. This very achievement may
have worked against them in the public view. Perhaps
it is because the American Imagists did not fulfill the
romantic notion of starving artists in a loft, that their work
is sometimes slighted as “commercial” rather than “high”
art. The American Imagist artworks were created to be
appreciated by large audiences rather than a few critics or
gallery-goers or a single collector wanting a painting just
to impress others.
Maxfield Parrish called himself “a businessman with
a brush.” He wisely said, “I paint a picture and sell a one-
time use only, sometimes for use on a toy, deck of cards,
calendars and greeting cards, then I sell the painting. I
sell it six times, while other artists paint a picture and sell
it once.”
A Dainty Breakfast. 1909. Oil on canvas, 30 x Industrial design and illustration emerged
22". Unsigned. Cream of Wheat advertisement
simultaneously as complementary professions. Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, noted
for their work in modern architecture and furniture design, realized early on that they
could either design a single great chair coveted by a collector, or a chair which everyone
could enjoy. The same design energy and creativity would go into a chair accommodating
a single bottom, or one mass-produced and designed to accommodate bottoms of all sizes.
Obviously, in this manner, a larger audience could appreciate their creative efforts. The
Eameses chose the latter direction rather than becoming sculptors of unique objects, and
the Eames Lounge Chair became a
timeless classic, still in production today.
Today, technology is forcing us beyond illustration as we have known it. The computer
and its manipulation of photography are eliminating manual artistic illustration from the
vocabulary. Like it or not, we receive on a daily basis a plethora of images illuminating
little and confusing much. This is not to deny that today’s professional illustrators continue
in the creative traditions of their profession. They may be as talented as their predecessors,

J.C. LEYENDECKER
but fewer are enabled because enlightened clients are rare.
The best example is in movie poster illustration, where
Hollywood producers once sought creative artists to tout
their films. Just like the popular magazines of the day, movie
studios had favorite illustrators: Paramount had Harrison
Fisher in the 1920s, Constantin Alajalov in the 1930s, and
John LaGatta in the 1950s; MGM, John Held Jr. in the 1940s;
United Artists, Saul Bass in the 1960s; Warner Brothers’,
Bob Peak in the 1970s; Twentieth-Century Fox, Richard
Amsel in the 1980s; and Dreamworks and LucasFilms, Drew
Struzan in the 1990s. However, since the turn ofthe century,
most movie posters are created by nameless souls with a
Macintosh computer but without formal art education and/
or natural creative talent.
But in all aspects of current cultural endeavor the
public seeks the artifacts of bygone eras. Thus we are
seeing a resurgence of“golden oldies” in music, post-post-
Modernism in architecture, and Biedermeier revivals in the
decorative arts.
Likewise, there is a newfound appreciation of art from
America’s Golden Age of Illustration—and ofthe brilliance
of J.C. Leyendecker in particular. Leyendecker captured
lifestyles with superior technical skills, with an imaginative
use of subject, and with an originality that many have sought
to imitate. In the idiom of Paul Klee, J.C. Leyendecker’s
illustrations were created not only by the artist’s heart and
brain, but also by a thinking eye. Unquestionably the greatest
of the icon makers, his oeuvre stands out to this day as among
the most recognizable and luminous American artists. Kuppenheimer Good Clothes: 1926. 1926. Oil on
canvas, 27 x 19°/,". Unsigned. House of Kuppen-
heimer advertisement

J.C. LEYENDECKER 255,

 AFTERWORD

alic: Leyendecker was laid to rest in a family gravesite at Woodlawn Cemetery, following
a requiem mass at New Rochelle’s Blessed Sacrament Church. Charles Beach, film actor-
model Neil Hamilton, and colleagues Norman Rockwell and Orson Lowell, were among
the pallbearers.
At the cemetery, Orson Lowell noted that the day before Joe died, he was painting
his last magazine cover commission for The American Weekly. Lowell eulogized, “unlike
many artists, Joe was able to transpose the delicate details of his original small sketches
to a larger canvas without loss of his original expression. He often cancelled social
engagements if they interfered with his work and craftsmanship . . . he was a designer
rather than an illustrator since he conceived of each assignment with a cover layout in
mind with lettering and artwork all composed together.” Finally, he called him “a master
painter”; that was really all one had to say.
Charles Beach then spoke, muttering that his lifelong companion was “top notch, few
could touch him, his skills were beyond any competition.” Beach went on to say, “He was
wedded to his art, and had no time for running around. His only other pleasure was his
home and its landscaping. He received great joy from the house and loved supervising the
gardening, spending many happy times there.”
A few days later, ina newspaper article entitled “Leyendecker as Perfectionist; Cover
Designer Preferred Art for the Masses,” Beach mused that “Joe focused on magazine art,
posters and advertising while other artists focused on portraits, vignettes, and religious
or otherwise inspired works for small audiences.” He noted that Joe did not take an active
role in the Society of Illustrators, or in local art circles in a very vibrant arts community.
Hejust did his artwork to his own
satisfaction without a need for acceptance or
recognition from others.
In the same newspaper, Jim Connell,
who had modeled for Joe, remembered, “Mr.

LEFT AND OPPOSITE: Quality by Kuppenheimer (Mermaid

and Handsome Men), details. c. 1930. Oil on canvas,
2 panels, 25 x 19" each

RIGHT: Leyendecker family gravesite at the Woodlawn

Cemetery, Bronx, New York
 Leyendecker was a very quiet man, very easygoing, but when he was working and his mind
was set on something you couldn’t go near him.”
Over the years, stories have sprung up surrounding Joe’s death—that he had left no
money at all, that an illustrator paid for his funeral and a small grave marker, that he was
buried in an unknown pauper’s graveyard without a marker. Yet, the facts are quite the
opposite.
- The Leyendecker family gravesite in which he was buried was purchased byJoe after
his mother’s death in 1905; today, both parents, Peter and Elizabeth, and three of
their
children—Mary, Frank, and Joe—are there (brother Adolph is at rest with his wife and
children in Kansas City, where he spent most of his life). For each family member there are
separate footstones.
J.C. Leyendecker left an estate of $60,000 (equivalent to nearly halfamillion today),
personal effects including his Pierce-Arrow roadster, and the valuable real estate. Mary
Leyendecker and Charles Beach shared equally in whatever remained from a whirling-
-dervish life. The New York Times ran a short article on the inheritance, “Model Inherits
$30,000” and referred to Beach as “a friend who posed for the original Arrow Collar
portraits and other paintings . . . he had been associated with Mr. Leyendecker for forty-
eight years as his secretary and aide. . .. The bequeath included original paintings,
personal effects and automobiles.”
Joe’s last will was signed on May 11, 1944.
“Magazine Cover Artist and Illustrator Stricken on Terrace of His Home—Joseph
Christian Leyendecker of 48 Mount Tom Road, noted commercial artist and magazine
cover illustrator, died of aheart attack. He was seventy-seven... and recently completed
a 1952 calendar for the American Oil Company.” So read the notice in the New Rochelle
Standard Star: a short and inconsequential announcement for such a giant of our popular
culture, already largely forgotten at death. The commission that Joe had been working
on for The American Weekly was a Christmas cover, which had just been approved by the
infamous William Randolph Hearst, his last client; Joe smugly bragged to Beach that it
would be his greatest painting, but sadly it was never completed. The unfinished work
disappeared into oblivion. Beach must have destroyed it.
After the funeral and mourning period, a deeply shaken and despondent Charles Beach
stood alone for the first time in half acentury. Anguished by the loss of his lover, there
were no friends to lean on, no servants, and his impending fate was obvious. On August
28, 1952, Charles Beach died alone at age seventy, without objects to remind him of his
past, only foggy memories ofthe glory days hidden deep in his then alcohol-diminished
mind. The location of his gravesite is a mystery, for he had no people in the United States
and few friends left; he had only Joe nearly his whole life.

ATTIC TREASURES
Molly Guion (1910-1982), a local portrait artist with an international reputation,
rented Joe’s studio for a short stint from the new owners in the fall of 1952. A generous
heart and joyous woman, she let neighborhood children play in the studio while she
worked. Having conjured up a game ofpirates, the rambunctious youths climbed a
 ladder and entered a small access hatch in the ceiling of Frank’s studio, looking for
places to hide and explore. They discovered a veritable real-life treasure, a cache
of original paintings in an ancient Louis Vuitton steamer. There were several other
trunks covered with sheets littered with mouse and squirrel droppings, water stains
from roof leaks, stacks of yellowed periodicals and waterlogged news clippings,
various artist props, suits of armor, whips, hats, and assorted clothes. Inside these now
heralded ‘pirate chests’ were sketches, studies, and an unknown number of finished oil
paintings, the detritus of a long and successful career. A newspaper account described
the find, “A cow’s skull lay buried midst yards of brocade curtains. Other old trunks
containing velvets, satins, and laces once used by the Leyendecker brothers.” A grotty
sight indeed, under a dark eave with squirrel nests, it had apparently gone unnoticed
by a distraught and lonely Beach.
Ms. Guion sorted the pirate’s booty to her taste, putting aside valuable originals,
studies, and sketches in portfolios, then kindly gave 1920s-style costume jewelry and some
masks to the boys as their rewards. Knowing the significance of the find, she enlisted the
help of illustrator Frank Reilly (1906-1967), instructor at the Art Students League. Taking
his advice, she magnanimously donated several paintings to the New York Public Library,
Kuppenheimer Good Clothes (Man in Fur Collar and a few others to admiring friends. The new owners apparently were more interested in
Coat). 1917. Oil on canvas, 25'/2 x 18/2". Unsigned.
subdividing the estate into small house lots than to investigate the dusty remains of a dead
House of Kuppenheimer advertisement
artist’s career in the attic.
Molly Guion later painted portraits of Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth (the Queen
Mother), and New York Governor Thomas Dewey, but her most notable contribution to art
was saving this last stash ofJoe’s originals.
After Charles Beach’s death in 1952, other artworks from the Mount Tom estate cache
were gifted to the Society of Illustrators. Between April 17 and May 13, 1953, the Society
held a special Leyendecker exhibition of the last of his personal collection followed by
a post-exhibit sale of many of the exhibited works. Mary had managed to keep several
dozen items she admired; she particularly liked Joe’s paintings for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes
boxes: children’s faces fascinated her. They must have replayed faces from her youth
in Chicago immigrant neighborhoods and she loaned them to the exhibition. Like so
many illustrators, Frank Reilly admired Joe and was pleased to organize the exhibition
and its subsequent sale. At the time ofthe sale, Reilly griped about Joe’s last days, “Mr.
Leyendecker could not even answer the telephone any more... . all his contacts were made
through an associate, C. A. Beach, original model for the Arrow Collar illustrations, who
assisted the painter with his work and upkeep of
the house for nearly half a century. Beach
kept us all from the artist all the time!”
The artworks went primarily to Society members’ appreciative hands, as evident from
this account by member Robert Geissmann: “Proverbial hotcakes never sold faster than
the original works by the lateJCLeyendecker displayed in our vest-pocket gallery... every
single item—from the fascinating hodgepodge of unmated preliminary cover ideas,
figure studies, life sketches and working roughs that covered the huge table, to the large
unframed Saturday Evening Post cover originals filling every inch of wall space—became a

236 JC. LEYENDECKER

 proud possession ofthe enthusiastic admirers ofthis popular latter-day idol. . . it was no
surprise to see many oftoday’s big leaguers giving attention to this wizard’s delineation of
idealized American youth ofa generation or so ago... the popeyed curiosity and earnest
study Leyendecker’s unique craftsmanship received was simply an extension of the respect
and admiration he earned and enjoyed from the turn ofthe century until his passing a
couple of years ago.” Such compliments from within the profession would have warmed
the heart of Leyendecker, who in his last years felt that he had been
totally forgotten by his audience and colleagues alike.

MOUNT TOM ROAD ESTATE

In July 1952, new owners ofthe Leyendecker estate at 48 Mount
Tom Road subdivided the land into separate house lots; it is
now surrounded by Korean War-era bungalows. The so-called
“mansion” was sold in September; with less than half its original
_ acreage. A newspaper account on October 10, 1952, described the
property just after the building portion was sold: “The entire plot
is landscaped... with shrubbery worth about $25,000 and the
house would cost $125,000 to build today. ... Offtoone side there is a rose garden with Garden at Mount Tom, 1919
a fountain and fish pool in the middle and hemlocks in the back. . . the house is barely
visible from the road. . . it looks out on the Long Island Sound. .. . [T]wo studios are
attached... and were used by Mr. Leyendecker and his brother Frank, also a commercial
artist... . [T]he three story structure is Normandy in architecture and has five bathrooms,
four fireplaces, two large center reception halls and seven bedrooms.”
Purchased by Raymond and Mary Force, the Mount Tom Road “mansion” was
converted into The Storybook House, a nursery school. That preschool became a landmark
in the rapidly growing community and it remains so today, albeit as the Mount Tom
Country Day School. When we visited recently, Director JillNewhouse proudly searched
for original architectural details, including the letter ‘L’ in black wrought iron she pointed
out on each side of twin chimneys.
There is no Department of Interior, National Register of Historic Places bronze plaque
to denote the property as an historic site, nor any meaningful Leyendecker remembrances
in the house itself, but for ghosts, real and imagined. The grounds so dutifully and lovingly
cared for by the Leyendecker couple were torn apart several times over the years to make
way for swing sets, sandboxes, and play areas. One can only reflect sadly and listen for
echoes ofwhat was once there. Suffice it to say the mansion on Mount Tom Road is no
longer what it had been.

On May Ist, 1953, New Rochelle art professor Ernest Thorne Thompson donated a restored
Joe Leyendecker painting entitled The Huguenot to the Huguenot and Historical Society
of New Rochelle. This work was presented at the Thomas Paine Building with Joe’s sister,
Mary Leyendecker, and artist Molly Guion in attendance as guests of honor. About three
dozen people attended the unheralded event. A visit to New Rochelle’s City Hall in 2007 to

J.C. LEYENDECKER Doi

 find The Huguenot painting showed the lack of recognition of the artist
in his own community. No one even knew of his painting or where it
might be.
Just after this occasion, Mary was inspired to gift three of
Joe’s works on paper (graphite, watercolor, anda gouache) to The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the nation’s most important art
museum. Joe would have been astounded and exceedingly flattered,
for in the 1950s few museums accepted what they considered to be
“commercial art.” However, Mary valued Joe’s remaining oils in her
care too much to give them away; even though she was in her eightieth
decade and with no heirs apparent, she gave some atypical works
on paper, no oils on canvas, no known images, not even a cereal box
painting. Near the end of her life, she was persuaded by Earl Rowland,
director of the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society and the
Haggin Museum, to loan all her remaining works, including all those
Kellogg cereal box cover images, to the San Joaquin Pioneer and
Historical Society for exhibition. She still had some cousins to whom
she planned on bequeathing the oils: all other more direct heirs,
including her niece (Genevieve) and nephew (Joseph A. Leyendecker),
were dead.

BELATED RECOGNITION IN A CHANGING CLIMATE

Slowly but surely in the years since Joe’s death, his work has acquired
the admiration and prestige he so craved in his lifetime.
In 1977, the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame posthumously
inducted J.C. Leyendecker, where his memory lingers. That same year,
Yule. 1931. Oil on canvas, 30% x 22'/,". the Royal Cornwall Corporation, a collectibles company, released an
Monogrammed jewel rent “Official First Edition by the Leyendecker Foundation,” Santa Loves You, a limited edition
of 19,500 plates by the Calhoun Collectors Society. Apparently, a quarter century after
J.C. Leyendecker’s death, he still had a substantial audience. In 1980, Royal Cornwall
issued a “Classi¢ Collection” of four more ceramic plates emblazoned with his art images.
Each plate was $65, its value projected to climb. The series was entitled the “Four Faces of
Love: Innocence, Romance, Motherly Love, and Sacred Love for the Creator.”

OnJanuary 2, 1984, Ken Stuart, art editor for the Saturday Evening Post from 1943 to 1963,
wrote to Judy Cutler (née Goffman) in response to a Leyendecker image (Yule, Post cover,
December 26, 1931) that Judy had reproduced as a Christmas card:

What a splendid card! Thank you, and an un-Orwellian 1984 to you and yours. | always
regretted that the Post Editors had sacked Joe Leyendecker before I came on as their
Art Director. I strenuously objected to the firing and argued for months to reverse
it, but it was one I lost. Great shame and a great mistake. His New Year’s baby covers

238 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 were classics. The editors wanted me to do them whilst I was still
a freelance artist; but I couldn’t bring myselfto do it much as I
needed the exposure that a cover could give to an artist. Good luck.
You people are doing a much-needed work.

In 1989, the American Illustrators Gallery NYC held a milestone

exhibition, “J.C. Leyendecker: An Age of Elegance,” with visitors
coming from across the nation, reviving and reigniting great interest
in J.C. Leyendecker.
On April 21, 1993, “The Great American Illustrators” exhibition
opened at the Odakyu Museum in Tokyo, Japan. Curated by Judy
Cutler and produced by Laurence Cutler, it toured several Japanese
museums through November 1993. Patronized by the U.S. Embassy,
and organized by the Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s largest newspaper,
the show took Japan by storm, with Leyendecker a special hit.
Michael Schau wrote for the catalogue, “All we need to know about
this artist is in the paintings... every painting points to a vision and
a character that is elegant, he was vital and devoted to his craft.”
On October 6, 1997, the American Illustrators Gallery NYC
opened the exhibition “J.C. Leyendecker: The Retrospective.” It was
scheduled to end in January 1998, but it was held over for six months
due to popular demand. Simultaneously, the Norman Rockwell
Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts held “J.C. Leyendecker:
A Retrospective,” a major exhibition featuring more than one
hundred Leyendecker paintings and drawings. These exhibitions
were clear testimony to the rebirth of wide-ranging interest in J.C.
ABOVE: New Year’s Baby 1937. 1936. Oil
Leyendecker’s art at the end of the twentieth century.
on canvas, 30 x 22°/.". Signed lower right.
Such a reawakening was far from all-encompassing, however. Reproduced: Saturday Evening Post, January 2,
1937, cover; U.S. postage stamp, 1999
In March 1998, a New Rochelle senior citizens group toured the
BELOW: Millennium stamp, 1999
retrospective exhibition at American Illustrators Gallery NYC.
During a gallery talk, the lecturer asked, “How many of you have
ever heard of J.C. Leyendecker before today?” Of the sixty persons
OFFICIAL
present, only one gentleman raised his hand, interestingly the cousin FIRST DAY
OF ISSUE

of the Surrealist artist/photographer Man Ray. The next question

asked was whether anyone knew that Leyendecker had lived in his or
her community. No one knew! Yet, eleven people had grandchildren
or children at the Mount Tom nursery school.
In 1999, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Millennium 2000
Celebration stamp series showing illustration art. A Leyendecker
stamp of a New Year’s Baby (1937) was included, with the statement, MILLENNIUM
“Largely through the work of artist J.C. Leyendecker, the New Year’s
Baby became a fixture of American popular culture. During 40

J.C. LEYENDECKER 239

 years as an illustrator for the The Saturday Evening Post, he created many memorable New
Year’s covers each picturing a baby.”
OnJuly 4, 2000, J.C. Leyendecker’s paintings graced the walls at the opening of the
National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) in Newport, Rhode Island. The
NMAI’s American Imagist Collection includes the largest collection of Leyendecker’s
original and vintage works from all phases of his career. Many are on permanent
exhibition in Vernon Court, a Beaux Arts rendition of an early-eighteenth-century
chateau—a site worthy of J.C. Leyendecker.

THE LEGEND SURVIVED AND IS REVIVED

Over half acentury after his death, the Leyendecker legend is intact. It tells of aman who
created iconic images and through his art and life influenced America immeasurably in
the process. Joe gained immortality as America’s greatest icon-maker, promulgator of
mass advertising, de facto leader of the American Imagists, master of magazine covers. His
cover art attracted sports buffs: Yale and Princeton football players, Penn and Harvard
crews sculling on the Schuylkill, auto racers and motor car enthusiasts, are all images as
compelling today as when they were painted more than half a century ago. Charles Beach
and Joe Leyendecker are held up as examples of monogamy among the gay community,
so often criticized for promiscuity. They live on in Joe’s matchless illustrations, Charles’s
J.C. Leyendecker, age 35. 1905. Autochrome Dorian Gray image never aging in Joe’s eyes nor in ours either.
Artist-illustrators, for his unique painting style; art historians, for artistic milestones;
art and advertising industry creative directors, for setting the parameters for eternal
styles and for being the supreme image-maker in an industry increasingly mediocre; and
members of the gay community, for icons of masculinity and sensitivity: all remember
Leyendecker for his contributions to American art and civilization. Joseph Christian
Leyendecker was the prototypical American Imagist, a global standard-bearer for
illustrators.

OPPOSITE: Interwoven Socks—Famous for

Their Colors. 1927. Oil on canvas, 39 x 28/4".
Interwoven Socks advertisement featuring
model Charles Beach. Reproduced: Saturday
Evening Post, 1927

240 J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. LEYENDECKER 24|
 CHRONOLOGY
J.C. LEVENDECKER
(1874-1951)

1895 The Golden Age of American Illustration begins

1863 Impressionist movement begins as reaction to Académie des Beaux-Arts. Degas,
Manet, Monet, Pisarro, Renoir, and Sisley exhibit in the Salon des Refuses
1870 Frederick Maxfield Parrish born in Philadelphia
1869 Adolph A. (“Aaych” or “Adam”) Leyendecker, J.C. Leyendecker’s older brother,
born in Germany
1872 Augusta Mary Leyendecker (“Mary”), J.C. Leyendecker’s sister, born in Germany
1874 Joseph Christian (“J.C.” also known as “Joe”) Leyendecker born on March 23 in
Montabaur, Germany
First Impressionist exhibition held in Paris
1876 Franz Xavier (“F.X.” or “Frank”) Leyendecker,
J.C. Leyendecker’s younger
brother, born in Germany
1880 Art Nouveau movement, international sensation of highly decorative elements in
architecture, fine art, decorative arts, and illustration, begins
1882 Leyendecker family immigrates to Chicago
1886 Charles A. Beach, Leyendecker’s life partner, born in Ontario, Canada
1889 Leyendecker begins engraving apprenticeship at J.Manz & Company
Adolph and Joe Leyendecker study art and design with Carl Ludwig Brandt (1831-1905)
1890s Nabis art movement—in which avant-garde Parisians, including Denis, Maillol,
Gauguin, Bonnard, Vuillard, and Roussel—try to revive the art world like the
Prophets (Les Nabis) revitalized Israel
1894 Leyendecker completes series of sixty illustrations for a special engraved edition
of the Bible
Leyendecker studies at the Art Institute of Chicago under noted artist-educator
John H. Vanderpoel (1857-1911)
Norman Perceval Rockwell born in New York State
1895 Illustration commissions completed for two books: Dolly Dialogues by Anthony
Hope Hawkins, and One Fair Daughter by Frank F. Moore
1896 First place prize-winner, Century Magazine’s Midsummer Holiday Number
Contest, August issue
Leyendecker brothers matriculate in Paris at Académie Julian and study at
Académie Colarossi. Joe meets Mucha at the Julian, becoming fast friends with
reciprocal artistic influences
1897 First independent freelance illustration commission at the recommendation of
Will Bradley, to create twelve covers for The Inland Printer
First one-man exhibition on April 24, at the Salon du Champs de Mars, with a
charcoal drawing of Frank in the catalogue
Mucha’s first exhibition staged by the Journal des Artistes at Galerie La Bodiniere.
Leyendecker meets Gauguin and his coterie
Leyendecker brothers return to Chicago and open studio at the Stock Exchange
Building
1898 Leyendecker exhibition showing ofthe Inland Printer originals held at Chicago’s
New York Life Building
First of forty-eight covers for Collier's magazine, November issue, completed
Construction of Vernon Court mansion, now the National Museum of American
Illustration, completed
1899 First cover painted for Saturday Evening Post, May issue, starting a forty-four year
association
1900 Joe and Frank leave for New York City and open a studio at 7 East 32nd Street
Joe begins his distinctive painting style, to be labeled, “The Leyendecker Look”
Advent ofthe rotary press permits full color printing and transforms illustration
1901 Leyendecker illustrates The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam for Delineator Magazine
1902 Illustrates book The Kiss ofGlory by Grace Duffie Boylan
1903 Leyendecker meets Charles A. Beach
1904 Cubism movement formed
1905 The Leyendecker Look evolves into a clearly recognizable style with strong iconic
images, wide brushstrokes with Impressionistic influences, academic Beaux Arts
techniques, and a Japanese chop mark-like signature and begets mass marketing
using sex symbols for first time
Leyendecker creates the Arrow Collar Man for Cluett, Peabody & Company
making Charles Beach the symbol of masculinity
Elizabeth Leyendecker (mother) dies; Joe moves entire family and an Irish maid
to Pelham Road, New Rochelle
1906 Leyendecker invents the New Year’s Baby for The Saturday Evening Post, December
issue, which immediately becomes an icon embraced worldwide
Illustrates book Ridolfo, The Coming of the Dawn by Edgerton R. Williams
Fauvism and Expressionism art movements begin
1907 Moves studio to 40th Street and Bryant Park, the Beaux Arts Building
First Thanksgiving cover for Saturday Evening Post, November issue, signaling
holiday issue successes

f OPPOSITE AND RIGHT: Kuppenheimer

Good Clothes: Wolfhound, details. 1925.
Oil on board. 2673/. x 207/,."
 1908 Begins long-term business relationships with B. Kuppenheimer & Company and
Interwoven Socks
Last visit to Curtis Publishing Company offices for twenty-six years
Advertisements commissioned by Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, hitherto an unknown
cereal
Joseph Adolph Leyendecker, nephew, born in Kansas
1913 Dubbed “The Master of the Magazine Cover” by Norman Rockwell
1914 Builds house on Mount Tom Road in New Rochelle with studio for Frank; Joe
commutes to New York City studio where Charles Beach lives
Beginning of a series oflegendary parties believed to have inspired the central
character in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby
1915 Norman Rockwell moves his studio to 24 Lord Kitchener Road in New Rochelle
Rockwell receives first Saturday Evening Post cover commission (for the May 20
issue)
Peter Leyendecker (father) dies on November 11
Beach moves to house on Mount Tom Road
Receives commissions for war posters, along with fellow American Imagists
Christy, Flagg, Gibson, Phillips, N.C. Wyeth, and others
Last work for Colliers magazine
1919 Moves studio to West 54th Street; Texas Guinan’s speakeasy in building
1920-30 Art Deco movement develops distinctively from Art Nouveau with cleaner lines,
simplified elements, and materials to be used for mass production
1920 Wins award for Arrow Collar advertisement of Charles Beach in the first Annual of
Advertising
Art in the United States under category “Paintings in Color”
Phyllis Frederic models for Joe; her father, Pops Frederic, also models for
Rockwell
1921 Created Interwoven sock advertisement of dapper young man on fence rail, still
used today as a logo by Paul Stuart Clothing
Frank paints The Flapper for Life magazine cover, coining a Roaring Twenties
sobriquet in the process
Leyendecker gives up NYC studio and works exclusively at Mount Tom Road
estate. Frank and Mary move out: Frank sets up studio near Rockwell, Mary
moves to a woman’s residential hotel on 29th Street
Frank paints his last Life cover
Phyllis Frederic models as Cleopatra for October Saturday Evening Post cover
Rockwell leaves to study at the Académie Colarossi in Paris
1924 Frank Leyendecker dies at forty-five years of age on Good Friday, after losing his
battles with depression and addictions
Surrealism Art movement founded by Breton emphasizes psychological meaning
of images and objects, juxtaposed with the unconscious
1926 Saturday Evening Post publishes first four-color cover on April 3
1927 Coles Phillips (artist and friend) dies on June 13

244 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 1929 New York Stock Market crashes
Genevieve Charlotte Leyendecker, niece, commits suicide with poison
1930 Termination of Arrow Collar commissions
1936 George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, retires. New editor
rarely uses Joe
1938 250th Anniversary Commemorative booklet for New Rochelle, entitled The
Huguenot with cover by Leyendecker and interior illustrations by Rockwell,
Penfield, Lowell, and Phillips
Adolph Leyendecker dies, buried in Cavalry Cemetery in Kansas City
1939 Norman Rockwell moves to Arlington, Vermont
1940 Leyendecker’s photograph appears on January cover of American Artists, featured
as one of America’s greatest artists
1941 Ben Hibbs appointed editor of Saturday Evening Post
_ 1943 Leyendecker’s last Saturday Evening Post cover, baby ringing in the New Year,
ending a thirty-six-year run
1944 War bond poster series commissioned by the Timken Company with most images
of generals Douglas MacArthur and Dwight David Eisenhower
1945 Cover for The American Weekly magazine, December issue
Europe’s’ most avant-garde creatives flee Hitler, settling mostly around New York
City
Abstract Art movement begins and, after World War II, thrives
1951 J.C. Leyendecker dies at age seventy-seven years onJuly 25 at his Mount Tom
Road refuge. Estate divided equally between Mary Leyendecker and Charles
Beach. Joe laid to rest at the Woodlawn Cemetery
1952 Charles Beach holds a yard sale, selling remaining paintings; studies sell for fifty
cents
Molly Guion, a neighboring portrait artist, rents Joe’s studio, discovers more
paintings, drawings, and sketches in loft
Mount Tom Road house sold
The Metropolitan Museum ofArt accepts gift from Mary Leyendecker ofthree
Leyendecker works on paper, marking the first museum acceptance of his
artworks
Charles Beach dies
1953 Exhibition at the Society of Illustrators, followed by a final sale ofJoe’s
remaining works
1957 Mary Leyendecker dies in New York City; leaving a perpetual care fund for the
Leyendecker family gravesite and the other half of her estate to fund a book (never
written) on Joe’s life and works
1960 Pop Art movement founded to bring more popular art to the masses through
emerging reproduction techniques—serigraphy, silk-screening—and obliterating
artificial lines drawn by art critics between illustration and fine art
1966 Maxfield Parrish dies in Cornish Colony, New Hampshire

J.C. LEYENDECKER 245

 1969 The original Saturday Evening Post closes
End of the Golden Age of American Illustration
1974 Publication ofJ.C. Leyendecker by Michael Schau, the first book on Leyendecker
and his work
1975 Publication of J.C. Leyendecker Poster Book with introduction by Rockwell
1976 Release of the Official First Edition of the Leyendecker Foundation, Santa Loves
You, a limited edition collectible plate in an edition of 19,500 by Calhoun’s
Collectors Society
1977 Joe posthumously elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame
U.S. Government, in recognition of J.C. Leyendecker as “America’s mirror in art
of the first half of the twentieth century,” publishes a Leyendecker painting as the
official Christmas stamp for 1977
Joseph Adolph Leyendecker, nephew, dies by self-inflicted shotgun wound
1978 Norman Rockwell dies at age eighty-four
1980 Royal Cornwell Corporation issues four ceramic plates, as collectibles
1982 Leyendecker included in the exhibition entitled: “Great American Illustrators” at
the C.W. Post Gallery
1988 “American Imagists” first used as a unifying name for artists from the Golden Age
of American Illustration who created icons and symbols of American civilization
1989 “J.C.” Leyendecker: An Age of Elegance” milestone exhibition at the American
Illustrators Gallery in New York
Phyllis Frederic visits American Illustrators Gallery NYC
1993 “The Great American Illustrators” exhibition in Japan organized by American
Illustrators Gallery NYC includes Leyendecker, in his second exhibition abroad
1997 “J.C. Leyendecker” exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge,
Massachusetts
1998 “J.C Leyendecker: The Retrospective” exhibition at the American Illustrators
Gallery NYC |
Founding of the National Museum of American Illustration at Vernon Court in
Newport featuring the largest permanent collection of J.C. Leyendecker originals
1999) December 27, U.S. Postal Service issues a Millennium 2000 Celebration, thirty-
three-cent stamp featuring a Leyendecker New Year’s Baby
2000 National Museum of American Illustration opens to the public on July 4, with
Leyendecker’s works displayed in the American Imagist Collection
2002 “J.C. Leyendecker—The Great American Illustrator” CD documentary produced
by Kultur Video
2006 “J.C. Leyendecker” exhibition at the American Illustrators Gallery NYC
“J.C. Leyendecker: America’s ‘Other’ Illustrator” opens at the Haggin Museum
and begins three-year tour often other museums.
2008 J.C. Leyendecker featured in “American Imagist” exhibition at National Museum
of American Illustration

246 J.C. LEYENDECKER

 MONTES

. Regina Armstrong, a friend of Mary Leyendecker’s, opined on the influence the

Leyendecker brothers’ ethnic origins had on their talents in her article about a
posthumous exhibition honoring Frank Leyendecker at the New Rochelle Public
Library: “Social Circle—An Appreciation,” The Standard Star (New Rochelle),
December 9, 1924.
. David Rowland, “Leyendecker: Sunlight and Stone,” Saturday Evening Post, May—June
1973, pp 56-62, 118-21. In 1938, when Joe was sixty-two years old and had not visited
the offices of the Post since 1912, this mysterious and notorious man for the first and
only time ruminated about his personal history with a Post editor. The result was not
particularly revealing but was considered by the Post to be a “journalistic triumph,” for
he was, after all, a silent living legend.
. “Keeping Posted,” Saturday Evening Post, October 15, 1938.
aibid.
. Neil Hamilton letter to Michael Schau dated March 7, 1972.
Ww
Bb
Nn . Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co.,
1960), p. 202.
. The Roaring Twenties (1939); its main character had a life story identical to Guinan’s.
Betty Hutton played Texas Guinan in Incendiary Blond (1945), Phyllis Diller played
her in Splendor in the Grass (1961), and Whoopi Goldberg played a character names
“Guinan” in twenty-eight episodes of television’s Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1988-93).
. Norman Rockwell as interviewed by Dick Barclay and Bob Deubel for the documentary
film Norman Rockwell: An American Portrait (1972); edited recollection by the authors
from a recorded tape of Rockwell reflecting on J.C. Leyendecker.
. Michael Schau, J.C. Leyendecker (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1974), p. 35. Excerpt of J.C.
Leyendecker letter to Ial Radon, December 25, 1950.
. Ibid.
ifale The Standard Star (New Rochelle). July 28, 1951.
12. As quoted in Gatchel & Manning brochure, 1940, January 1940 American Artist feature.

Man with Cane and Gloves, detail. 1914. Oil on

canvas, 29'/2 x 207/.". Unsigned. Arrow Collar
Pal ei Clas TT,
 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

This bibliography is provided as an assist to those undertaking further research on J.C.

Leyendecker and the American Imagists. It is not meant to be comprehensive but rather a
starting point, for there is a general dearth ofinformation available on illustration. Until
rather recently, illustration art was not accepted as a scholarly pursuit. Times have begun
to change, and hopefully this book and its bibliography will inspire others to undertake
more research into this rich segment ofthe fine arts spectrum.

Allen, Michael. “Norman Rockwell’s Idol.” The Saturday Evening Post, October 1981.
The Art ofJ. C. Leyendecker. Royal Oak, MI: 21st Century Archives, 1995.
American Art by American Artists. New York: P.F. Collier & Sons, 1914.
Annuals ofAmerican Illustration. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1959-2001.
Bird, William L., and Harry R. Rubenstein. Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the
American Home Front. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.
Bland, David. A History ofBook Illustration. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company,
1958.
Bogart, Michele H. Advertising, Artists, and the Borders ofArt. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1995.
Bolton, Theodore. American Book Illustrators: Bibliographic Check Lists of 123 Artists. New York:
R.R. Bowker Co., 1938.
Bowers, Q. David, et al. Harrison Fisher. Cincinnati: Bowers, Budd and Budd, 1984.
Boylan, Grace Duffie. The Kiss ofGlory. New York: G. W. Dillingham Co., 1902.
Bradley, Will. “The Art of Illustration.” The Nation, July 1913.
Broder, Patricia Janis. Dean Cornwell: Dean of Illustrators. New York: Balance House, 1978.
Brokaw, Howard Pyle. The Howard Pyle Studio: A History. Wilmington, DE: The Studio
Group, 1983.
Brownell, W. C. French Art, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York: 1901.
Buechner, Thomas S. Norman Rockwell, Artist and Illustrator New York: Abrams, 1970.
Butterfield, Roger. The Saturday Evening Post Treasury, Simon and Schuster, New York: 1954.
Carter, Alice A. The Red Rose Girls. New York: Abrams, 2000.
A Century ofAmerican Illustration. New York: The Brooklyn Museum Press, 1972.
Chester, George Randolph. Get Rich Quick Wallingford. New York: A. L. Burt Company,
1908.
Christy, Howard Chandler, ed. Liberty Belles: Eight Epochs in the Making ofthe American Girl,
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1912.
Cohn, Jan. Covers ofThe Saturday Evening Post. New York: Viking Studio Books, 1995.
Cooper, Emmanuel. The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the
West. London: Routledge, 1994.
Corelli, Marie. Vendetta or the Story ofOne Forgotten. London: Bentley, 1886.
Crane, Walter. The Decorative Illustration ofBooks. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1896.
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——. The Great American Illustrators (exhibition catalogue). Tokyo: The Great American
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Cutler, Laurence S., and Judy A. G. Cutler. Parrish & Poetry. San Francisco: Pomegranate,
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—.. Maxfield Parrish:ARetrospective. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 1995.
——. Maxfield Parrish, San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2001.
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Random House Value Publishing, 1999.
——. Maxfield Parrish and the American Imagists. London: Regency House Publishing
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Delaware Art Museum, 1972.
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Art & Culture 1900-1950. New York: Norton, 1999.
Holme, Bryan. The Journal of the Century. New York: Viking, 1976.
Hornung, Clarence P., and Fridolf Johnson. 200 Years ofAmerican Graphic Art. New York:
Braziller, 1976.

RIGHT AND OPPOSITE: Man with Seated

Lady, details. 1929. Oil on canvas, 51 x 33".

DT ee SE peal)ESE ee See | Ce! ne Site
 Hornung, Clarence P. The Advertising Designs of Walter Dorwin Teague. New York: Art
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Horwitt, Nathan G. A Book ofNotable American Illustrators —1926. New York: Walker
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Innes, Norman. The Lonely Guard. New York: Jacobs, circa 1912.
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Jacobson, Egbert G. Annual ofAdvertising
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—. “J.C. Leyendecker and the Homoerotic Invention of Men’s Fashion Icons,
1910-1930.” Prospects, Fall-Winter 1996.
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— . America’s Great Illustrators. New York: Abrams, 1978.
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250 J.C. LEYENDECKER

Rowland, David. “Leyendecker: Sunlight and Stone,” Saturday Evening Post, May—June
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J.C. LEYENDECKER Z|
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge all those who assisted us in synthesizing that which we found
in the course of creating this book. Each person, institution, and corporation mentioned
helped to bring J.C. Leyendecker’s art and personal story to a longing audience, and we
thank you all. We also thank those whom we may have inadvertently overlooked, while
specifically crediting:
Andrew Douglas Goffman ofthe American Illustrators Gallery, for his tireless
enthusiasm and perseverance in locating primary Leyendecker paintings.
Jessica Labbé, Dan Haar, Christine Shannon, and Andrew Weingert of the American
Illustrators Gallery and Eric Brocklehurst, Jill Perkins, Benjamin Langley III, and Catherine
Smith of the National Museum of American Illustration, for their team support of our efforts.
ARTShows and Products Worldwide (ASaP), the torch-bearers of Leyendecker’s
eternal flame, for the JC Leyendecker® trademark.
Dick Barclay and Bob Deubel, makers of the 1972 Academy Award-winning
documentary “Norman Rockwell,” for dreaming of
yet another Academy Award-—winner,
this time about Joe Leyendecker.
Shep Brozman and his late wife, Melba, for searching for new plateaus from Japanese
Inro to Leyendecker, and for encouraging us to again put pens to paper.
Michael Dolas, Renaissance man; illustrator-artist, engineer, collector, inventor, and
sculptor, whose life revolves around Lura’s operas, fine arts, and the Lotos Club.
The Dorros Family Photo Collection, for the autochrome portrait of Leyendecker.
Phyllis Frederic, charming Leyendecker model from the Roaring Twenties, whose
devotion to his art and persona withstood the test of time. Her joyous sharing of stories
provided rare insights into his lifestyle and the man and turned the mystery of the
Leyendecker legend into a virtual being for us and you.
Bill Hargreaves, whose expertise and willingness to share vintage Leyendecker is most
appreciated, and whose devotion to illustration is extraordinary.
Beatrix Kunzer of the Montabaur State Archives in Germany for Leyendecker and
Ortseifen family archival searches.
Darwin Lin, for promoting
J.C. Leyendecker’s artworks in Asia, creating an awareness
in new realms.
Susan E. Meyer, author of America’s Great Illustrators (1978), for her early contribution to
the lore.
 Gary Meyers and Brian Leonard, documentary filmmakers, for their ambitious efforts
to create a high definition television film on this artist and the other American Imagist
masters.
Jill Newhouse, who graciously welcomed us to the Mount Tom Day School, the former
Leyendecker estate.
Susan Olsen, whose research clarified rumors regarding a hitherto unknown brother,
Adolph A. Leyendecker.
Arnold Quinn, for his efforts to publish the best replications of Leyendecker artworks
ever created.
Baron Alan H. Rothschild, Esq., who with an astute eye proofed an early manuscript.
They say it is comforting to have critics as friends—or did they say, friends who are critics?
Tod Ruhstaller, curator of the 2006 exhibition “J.C. Leyendecker: America’s ‘Other’
‘

Illustrator,” for sharing the story of Earl Rowland.

Michael Schau, whose 1974 J.C. Leyendecker book was all one had to go on for many
years. Michael’s recent visits proved his passion has not waned and we thank him for the
loan of photographs, letters, and memorabilia—a gracious and welcome assist.
Joan SerVass, President of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday
Evening Post, for granting reproduction rights. Also The Saturday Evening Post magazine, for
rights to reproduce those covers over which they assert copyrights.
G. J. Sullivan, for sharing photographs and personal knowledge ofthe Leyendecker
and Ortseifen families.
Creston Tanner, collector of both Joe Leyendecker and Maxfield Parrish’s vintage
works, for generously offering help whenever needed.
J.C. Leyendecker’s corporate clients, including Kellogg’s Corn Flakes; Kuppenheimer;
Cluett, Peabody & Co. (Arrow); Interwoven Socks Inc.; Hart Schaffner & Marx; Proctor
& Gamble; The Timken Company; and others, for the historic advertising campaigns they
waged using his images as weapons against competitors and lures for customers.
We also extend thanks to the following institutions, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Historical Society, Columbia University Library, Museum ofthe City of New York, New
Rochelle Public Library and City Hall, New York City Public Library, National Arts Club,
New-York Historical Society, Salmagundi Club, and Society of Illustrators.
Finally, we are sincerely grateful to Eric Himmel, editor-in-chief
of Harry N. Abrams,
for more than a decade ofpatience and continuing interest in publishing this book; to the
late Paul Gottlieb, president, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Abrams, for his faith that
we would ultimately produce this book; to Laura Lindgren, for her superb book design,
which complements Joe Leyendecker’s artworks so well; and lastly, to Beverly Fazio Herter,
for her surgical wisdom and talent at selecting what to leave in and what to take out.
J.G.C. and L.S.C.

RIGHT AND OPPOSITE: Couple Descending

Staircase, details. 1932. Oil on canvas, 49'/s x
z9" LIncisoned
 PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
The authors and publishers would like to thank www.americanillustration.org, except as noted. 184 below left and above right; 186; 187; 191 above

the individuals and institutions who so kindly All Saturday Evening Post cover images © 2008 right; 193 right; 195; 215 below right; 211; 227. New

loaned photographs and/or gave consent to their SEPS: www.curtispublishing.com. Rochelle Standard Star, May 1, 1953: 32. Courtesy

publication. References are to page numbers. Mrs. James F. Parr and Michael Shau: 39 above
Country Life magazine, June 1919: 39 below, right. Private Collection: 51. Courtesy Michael
All transparencies of original artwork © left and right. Photo by Judy and Laurence Schau: 29 above; 31 bottom; 38 below; 40 below;

2008 with all rights reserved and courtesy Cutler: 39 above left. Courtesy Dorros Family 71; 177 middle center; 183 below; 226 below left.
of the Archives of the American Illustrators Photo Collection: 240 above left. Courtesy Bill Courtesy Society of Illustrators: 173. Courtesy
Gallery, NYC, www.americanillustrators.com, Hargreaves: 30 above left; 31 middle right; 35 G. J. Sullivan: 20; 21; 22. “The Syndicates of

except as noted. All reproductions of printed above right; 42 above left; 53; 64 below left; 66 Chicago,” www.americanbreweriana.org:
material © 2008 with all rights reserved above left; 170 above left; 171; 177 bottom right; 23. Courtesy Creston Tanner: 172 top left;
and courtesy of the Archives of
the National 178 middle, left and right; 179 bottom right; 180 180 bottom left; 180 top right. Courtesy The
Museum of American IIlustration, Newport R.I., top center; 180 bottom right; 182; 183 above row; Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY: 234 right.

LIN)
Ibi 2 24
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. B C
Back to School theme, 210; 210 Calhoun Collectors Society, 238
Barrymore, John, 57 Cassandre, Adolphe, 28-29
A Baum, L. Frank, 31 Century, The, magazine: covers for, 23-25, 203;
Académie Colarossi, 29 Beach, Charles A., 9, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 44, 46; 24, 25,170
Académie Julian, 10, 23, 28-29 37, 39, 60, 241; appearance and qualities of, Chap Books, 30, 31
“AD 1688: New Rochelle-The City of the 36, 37; as Arrow Collar Man, 46, 74, 235, Chéret, Jules, 25, 29, 224
Huguenots,” 48; 32, 33 236; creative work with Leyendecker, 37, Chicago, 19-20, 30, 31, 33
advertising art, 71-75; commissions from, 33 62; death of, 235; and death of Leyendecker, Christmas, 67, 200-1, 202, 247; 67-68, 166, 190,
American Illustrators Gallery, 10, 11 52, 234; and F.X. Leyendecker, 41, 44; 202, 231, 238
American Imagists, 230, 232 inheritance from Leyendecker, 235; and Christy, Howard Chandler, 16, 39; 17
American Weekly, The, magazine, 50, 234, 235; 53; Mount Tom house, 42, 50; and Rockwell, 37, Cleopatra (painting), 62; 62
170, 211 50; screening of Leyendecker, 50, 52, 236; Close, Chuck, 66
Apollo magazine, 229 and staffing of studio, 36—37 Club Intime, 44, 46, 62
Armstrong, Regina, 20 Beaux Arts Building, 36, 38, 44, 49 Cluett, Peabody & Company, 73-74
Arrow Collar Man, 38, 73-75, 235, 236; and Benedict, Enella, 23 Collier’s magazine, 35, 40, 203; 2, 34, 57, 172-81
branding, 71; Charles Beach as 46, 74, 235, book illustration, 23, 212; 12, 213-23 Connell, Jim, 234-35
236; as first male sex symbol, 73, 74; as Booth, Franklin, 56 Connolly, Charles M., 73-74
symbol of Roaring Twenties, 46, 48 Bougereau, William-Adolphe, 230 Constant, Benjamin, 25, 230
Arrow Collars and Arrow Shirts, 37, 38, 56; 3, Bowles, Joseph, 31 Couple Descending Staircase (painting), 56, 62;

18, 45, 47, 54; 58-59, 73-82, 86, 87, 98—99, 228, Bradley, Will, 31 $4, 252-53
246, 248-49 “branding,” 71, 73-74 Crimson Conquest (Hudson), 212; 273
Art Institute of Chicago, 23 Brandt, Carl, 21 Curtis, Cyrus, 100
Art Nouveau style, 28 Curtis Publishing Company, 30, 100

254
 Cutler, Laurence, 9-11, 239 H Les Maitre de l’Affiche (Masters of the Poster), 25
Cutler (née Goffman), Judy, 9-11, 238-39 Haggin Museum, 32-33, 238 Leyendecker, Adolph A. (brother), 19, 20-22,
Hamilton, Neil, 38-39, 40, 42, 57, 234 32, 235; 20
D Harper's magazine, 13 Leyendecker, Augusta Mary (Mary) (sister),
Des Imagistes (Pound), 229 Hearst, William Randolph, 13, 235 19, 22, 32-33, 52, 235, 237; 20, 32, 39; and
Dial, The magazine, 31 Hibbs, Ben, 50 Charles Beach, 32, 37, 42, 44; in New York,
Donlevy, Brian, 38, 57, 62; 44, 54, 78-79 holiday covers and illustrations, 67, 71, 196, 33; and inheritance from J.C., 235; and
Doolittle, Hilda, 229 200, 203-4, 207, 210; 67—69, 196— 210; see Leyendecker paintings, 32-33, 236, 238
“Drips,” 25 also Christmas; Independence Day; New Leyendecker, Elizabeth née Ortseifen (mother),
Duchamp, Marcel, 29 Year’s baby; Thanksgiving 19, 32, 235
Duncan, Isadora, 31 homecoming, 203-4 Leyendecker, Franz Xavier (F.X. or “Frank”)
Howe, Julia Ward, 200 (brother), 10, 19, 20, 22, 29, 32, 40-41; and
E Huguenot, The (painting), 237-38 Charles Beach, 41, 44; and Collier’s, 35; 34;
Eames, Charles and Ray, 232 Hyde Park, Illinois, 19, 31 last years and death of, 52, 235; and Neil
Easter, 69, 70, 153 Hamilton, 39, 40; in Paris, 25, 30; portraits
Ecole des Beaux Arts, 25, 42 I and photographs of: 20; 20, 28, 29, 40; and
~ Election Day, 67 illustration art: Golden Age. of American, 13, Norman Rockwell: 41; substance abuse of,
15, 16, 233; in Paris, 30; in turn-of-century 22, 25, 30, 34, 35-36, 41; works by: 34, 35, 41,
F America, 31, 33 42,43
“Fadeaway Girls (Phillips),” 16, 49 “Imagists, The,” 229-30 Leyendecker, Genevieve Charlotte (niece), 22
Falter, James, 100 Impressionist art exhibit of 1874, 19 Leyendecker, Joseph Adolph (nephew), 22

Fine Art Building, Chicago, 31 Independence Day, 204, 207; 53, 67, 70, 159, 163, Leyendecker, Joseph Christian (J.C. or “Joe”):
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, 47, 100 206-7; and firecrackers, 207; 207-8 ancestry of, 20; attic treasures of, 235-37;

Fitzgerald, Zelda, 47 industrial design and illustration, 232 belated recognition of, 233, 238-40; Century
Flagg, James Montgomery, 16, 39, 100 Inland Printer magazine covers/exhibition, cover and poster of, 23, 25, 28; 24; and
Charles Beach, 36, 37, 46—48, 50; early life
flappers, 44; 42, 43 31-32, 33; 30-31, 182-83
football, 203-4; 57, 107, 115, 156, 170, 175 Interwoven Socks, 40; 8, 60, 75, 241 of: 19-23; death of, 52, 234-35; funeral and

Force, Raymond and Mary, 237 Ivory soap, 71, 75; 71, 72 gravesite of, 234-35; 234; homosexuality

Ford, Ford Maddox, 229 of, 9-10, 22, 55, 240; life of, 19-52; and
Norman Rockwell, 7, 13, 44-46, 48-50;
“Four Faces of Love” ceramic plates, 238 J
Fourth ofJuly. See Independence Day Japanese prints, 29, 31, 230
parties by, 46-48; photographs and portraits

Frederic, Phyllis, 10-11, 20,62—63; 45, 54, 62, Jarvis, Anna M., 200
of, 7, 9; 7, 20, 29, 240; physical appearance
of, 36; and proposal to Phyllis Frederic,
78-79 J.C. Leyendecker (Schau), 57
Frederic, William “Pops,” 10, 57, 62-63 Josefowitz, Paul, 229 63; religious origins of, 20; and sister, 20,
32-33; solo exhibitions of, 10, 31-32, 33,
Joyce, James, 229
239; study in Paris, 25-30; working style of,
G
35-36
Gauguin, Paul, 30 K
Leyendecker look, 55-57, 66—67, 71, 212;
Get Rich Quick Wallingford (Chester), 212; 215 Kansas City Stained Glass Works Company, 22
definition of, 56; homoerotic nature of,
Gibson, Charles Dana, 10, 15-16; 16 Kellogg’s advertisements, 75, 236, 238
36, 55, 74-75; and live models, 55, 56, 57;
Gibson Girl, 16 Klee, Paul, 233
monogram of, 56; 230; recognizable icons,
Golden Age of American Illustration, 13, 15, Kuppenheimer, B., and Company, 35-36, 73, 75;
55, 67, 71; and sole focus, 71; technique of,
229, 232-33 10-11, 35, 61, 64—65, 66, 73, 83, 88-89, 92—93,
“Great American I|lustrators, The,” exhibition,
56-57, 66-67, 234
95-97, 231, 233, 234-36, 242-43
Leyendecker, Peter (father), 19-20, 32, 42, 235
10, 239
Life magazine, 44; 42, 43
Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald), 47-48 L
Literary Digest, 100; 184
Guinan, Texas, 44, 46, 62 Labor Day, 210; 155, 211
Longley’s Restaurant, 38
Guion, Molly, 235-36, 237 Laurens, Jean-Paul, 11, 28
Lorimer, George Horace, 31, 50, 100
Lawrence, D.H., 229
Lowell, Any, 229
LeFebvre, Jules—Joseph, 25, 27

INDEX 255
Lowell, Orson, 48, 234 P Schau, Michael, 47, 239
Paris, 10, 25, 28-31, 46, 224 Scribner, Charles, 13
Lucas, George, 15
Parrish, Maxfield, 15, 57, 232; 16; The Century Scribner’s magazine, 13
cover, 23, 25; 25 seasons, 207, 210; 144, 149, 208—9
M
Madison Avenue, 71 Penfield, Edward, 31 “show posters,” 224
magazine cover art, 13, 15, 100, 230; 67, 67-707, Phillips, C. Coles, 16, 48, 49; 49 Smith, Jessie Willcox, 16; 16
plates, collectible, 238 Society of
Illustrators, 234, 236, 238
100-211

Manz,J.,& Company, 23, 212 pochet brushstroke, 56 Speer, Albert, 210

March, Frederick, 57 Popular magazine, 100; 185—87 Speilberg, Steven, 15

McAvoy Brewing Company, 19, 22-23; 22, 23 poster art, 25, 28, 50, 224; 224-27 Stuart, Ken, 238-39

McAvoy, John, 19 Pound, Ezra, 229, 230 Success magazine, 100; 188-91

Metcalfe, Louis Rochet, 42 Powers Brothers Company, 23, 212 Sundblom, Haddon Hubert (1899-1976), 203
Metropolitan Museum ofArt, 238 Pulitzer, Joseph, 13
Michelangelo, 9, 10 Pyle, Howard, 10, 13, 16, 230; 23 At
Millennium 2000 Celebration stamp, 239; 239 Teague, Walter D., 74
Miss America Pageant, 16 R Thanksgiving, 67, 203-4; 38, 70, 147, 169, 203—5
Modern Art journal, 31 Radom, lal, 57 Thompson, Ernest Thorne, 237
Montabaur, Germany, 19, 20, 23, 36 Reilly, Frank (1906-1967), 236 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de (1864-1901), 25,
Moore, Clement Clarke, 200 Ridolfo: The Coming of the Dawn (Williams), 212; 29,30

Mother’s Day and flowers, 200; 201 12, 214 “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” 200,
Mount Tom estate, 10, 41, 46, 48, 50, 52, 200, Riefenstahl, Leni, 210 203; 202
237; 39, 237; establishment of, 42, 44 River Seine, 29, 34; 28
Mount Tom nursery school, 10, 237, 239 Roaring Twenties, 16, 46, 48 U
ucha, Alphonse Maria (1860-1939), 25, 28, Rockwell, Norman, 7, 10, 11, 15, 15, 16, 39, 50, 51, Uncle Sam, 16, 207; 15, 206
29-30 52; 51; and Charles Beach, 37, 50; and Frank United States War Department, 50; 224-26
Mulhall, Jack, 57 Leyendecker, 41; and Frederics, 62-63; and
Vv
My Adventures as an Illustrator (Rockwell), 48, 51 Leyendecker’s drinking, 44, 46; and live
models, 57; modeled on Leyendecker, 51, 230; Vanderpoel,
John H., 23
N and move to New Rochelle, 48, 51; paintings Verlag von Gerhard Kuhtmann, 25
Nast, Thomas (1840-1922), 200 by, 49; and Saturday Evening Post, 100
National Museum of American IIlustration Rowland, Earl, 32-33 . W
(NMAI), 10, 240 Royal Cornwall Corporation, 238 Washington Square (James), 33
New Rochelle, N.Y.: as artistic center, 48; and Wilde, Oscar, 9-10
Leyendecker home, 36, 38, 48, 49, 229; see S Williams, William Carlos, 229
also Mount Tom estate Saint Francis Xavier, 20 Winchell, Walter, 46
New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce, 48 Saint Valentine, 126, 160 Woman's Magazine, The, 100; 194
New Year’s baby, 71, 196, 238-9, 239-40; 108, Salmagundi Club, 10 Women with Cat (Leyendecker), 30
116, 119, 136, 140, 196—99, 239 Salon du Champs de Mars exhibition, 30 Women’s Home Companion magazine, 100; 192—93
New York City, 33-34, 42, 44, 46, 229 San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Museum, World’s Work magazine, 100; 195
New York Life Building exhibition, 31 32-33, 238 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 31
Newhouse, Jill, 237 Santa Claus, 67, 200-201, 238; 202, 231 Wyeth, N.C., 10, 100; 14
Santa Loves You (plates), 238
O Saturday Evening Post, 100; covers and W
Odakyu Museum, 239 illustrations for, 35, 38, 42, 50, 100, 203; 50, Yeats, W.B., 229
Ortseifen, Adam, 22 52, 62—63, 67, 100-169, 196-99, 218-21; and Yomimuri Shimbun newspaper, 239
Ortseifen, Christian, 20 firing of Leyendecker, 238; first cover for,
30-31; and holiday covers, 67, 71, 196-210;
67-69, 147; interviews with Leyendecker, 22;
and Rockwell, 51

256 INDEX
Laurence S. Cutler is an award-winning architect, urban
designer, author, advertising executive, and educator.
A former professor of architecture and urban design at
Harvard University, MIT, and the Rhode Island School of
Design, Cutler is the founder of ARTShows and Products,
which coordinates exhibitions and licenses derivative art
products, the American Civilization Foundation, and the
Alliance for Art and Architecture, dedicated to promoting
joint art and architecture educational endeavors. He is the
author of a dozen books on architecture, urban design,
city planning, fine art, and poetry. Mr. Cutler is also co-
founder/chairman of the National Museum of American
Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island.

Judy Goffman Cutler is an art dealer, author, and co-

founder/museum director of the National Museum of
American Illustration. Dubbed the “undisputed doyenne
of American illustration” by Architectural Digest, Ms.
Cutler is the founder of the American Illustrators Gallery
in New York City. Additionally, she is a co-founder
of both ARTShows and Products and the American
Civilization Foundation, a nonprofit organization that
promotes collaborative art, landscape architecture, and
architectural undertakings for public enlightenment,
as well as the author of numerous books and exhibition
catalogues. The Cutlers live in Newport, Rhode Island.

JACKET FRONT: Couple in Boat (detail). 1922. Oil on canvas,

202 x 29%". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement

JACKET BACK: Dancing Couple. 1930. Oil on canvas,

38 x 24". Unsigned. Arrow Collar advertisement

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