J. C. Leyendecker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking.

J. C. Leyendecker
Leyendecker in 1895
Birth name	Joseph Christian Leyendecker
Born	March 23, 1874(1874-03-23) Montabaur, Germany
Died	July 25, 1951 (aged 77) New Rochelle, New York, USA
Nationality	American
Field	Illustration, Painting
Training	Chicago Art Institute, Académie Julian
Influenced by	Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, Alfons Mucha
Influenced	Norman Rockwell

Illustration for Arrow Collar, 1907. J.C. Leyendecker.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker (March 23, 1874 – July 25, 1951) was a 20th century American illustrator. He is most well known for his men's fashion advertisements, particularly the Arrow Collar Man, and as Norman Rockwell's predecessor as the premier illustrator of covers for the Saturday Evening Post^[1].

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life & education

Joseph Christian Leyendecker ('J.C.' or 'Joe') was born on March 23, 1874, in Montabaur, Germany, to Peter Leyendecker (1838 – 1916) and Elizabeth née Oreseifen (1845 – 1905). He had three siblings: an older brother, Adolph A. Leyendecker (1869 – 1938); an older sister, Augusta Mary Leyendecker (1872 – 1957); and a younger brother, Franz Xavier ('F.X.' or 'Frank') Leyendecker, also known as Frank X. Leyendecker (1876 – 1924).

In 1882, the Leyendecker family immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, where Elizabeth's uncle had founded the successful McAvoy Brewing Company. After working in late adolescence for a Chicago engraving firm, J. Manz & Company, and completing his first commercial commission of sixty Bible illustrations for the Powers Brothers Company, Joe enrolled in the Chicago Art Institute. While Leyendecker's artistic endeavors date back to his early childhood, this was his first formal art training in an academic setting.

After studying under John H. Vanderpoel at the Chicago Art Institute, Leyendecker and younger brother Frank enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris for a year, where they were exposed to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, and also Alfons Mucha, founder of the Art Nouveau movement. While Frank returned to the U.S. with serious addictions and a lack of direction, Joe returned with a drive for success, an understanding of what sold, and a clear vision of how to achieve it.

[edit] Career

In 1899, the Leyendecker brothers set up residence in an apartment in Hyde Park, Illinois, and had a studio in Chicago's Fine Arts Building at 410 South Michigan Ave. On May 20 of that year, Joe received his first commission for a Saturday Evening Post cover – the beginning of his forty-four year association with the most popular magazine in the country, which would yield 322 covers, among which iconic 20th century American images and visual tradition were founded and/or popularized, such as the New Year Baby, the pudgy red-garbed rendition of Santa Claus, flowers for Mother's Day, and firecrackers on the 4th of July.

Leyendecker home on Mount Tom Road in New Rochelle, New York.

In 1900, Joe, Frank, and their sister Mary moved to New York City, taking full advantage of all the opportunities that the city offered, finding much in the way of corporate illustration commissions. During the next decade, both brothers began lucrative long-term working relationships with clothiers and apparel manufactures such as Interwoven Socks, B. Kuppenheimer & Co., and Cluett Peabody & Company, for which he created the Arrow Collar Man (the first brand name in advertising), based on his lover and favorite model, Charles Beach (1886 – 1952).^[2]

In 1914, the Leyendeckers, accompanied by Charles Beach, moved into their mansion and studio in New Rochelle, New York, where Joe would reside for the rest of his life. During the first World War, in addition to his many commissions for magazine covers and men's fashion advertisements, Joe also painted recruitment posters for the United States military and the war effort.

Leyendecker's December 28, 1907 cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

The 1920s were in many ways the apex of Leyendecker's career, with some of his most recognizable work being completed during this time. Modern advertising had come into its own, with Leyendecker widely regarded as the pre-eminent commercial artist. This popularity extended beyond the commercial, and into Leyendecker's personal life, where he and Charles Beach hosted large galas attended by people of consequence from all sectors. The parties they hosted at their New Rochelle home/studio were important social and celebrity making events.

As the 1920s marked the apex of Joe Leyendecker's career, so the 1930s marked the beginning of its decline. In 1930, Cluett, Peabody, & Co. retired the Arrow Collar Man advertising campaign, thus ending the two-and-a-half decade long working relationship which Leyendecker had shared with them. During this time, the always shy Leyendecker became more and more reclusive, rarely speaking with people outside of his sister Mary Augusta and Charles (Frank had passed away in 1924 as a result of an addiction-riddled lifestyle). Perhaps in reaction to his almost all-pervasive widespread popularity in the previous decade, or as a result of the new economic reality following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the number of commissions Leyendecker received steadily declined. In 1936, the editor at the Saturday Evening Post for all of Leyendecker's career up to that point, George Horace Lorimer, retired, and was replaced by Wesley Winans Stout (1937-42) and then Ben Hibbs (1942-62), both of whom rarely commissioned Leyendecker to illustrate covers.

Leyendecker's last cover for the Saturday Evening Post was of a New Year Baby for January 2, 1943, thus ending the artist's most lucrative and celebrated string of commissions. New commissions continued to filter in, but slowly. Among the most prominent were posters for the United States Department of War, in which Leyendecker depicted commanding officers of the armed forces encouraging the purchases of bonds to support the nation's efforts in WWII. Leyendecker died on July 25, 1951, at his estate in New Rochelle of an acute coronary occlusion. Charles was at his side.

[edit] Personal life

Leyendecker's biographers Laurence and Judy Cutler describe his lifestyle during the teens and twenties as that of an openly gay man, but by the time of his death he had become a secretive recluse. In an era when such a sexual orientation was taboo, Leyendecker's personal life was brushed aside in the popular media in favor of focusing on his fame as an artist. Leyendecker may have attempted to disguise the homoerotic content of his drawings by including women adoring the handsome men. A few images are more overtly homoerotic, such as advertisements for Gillette in which scantily clad men teach each other how to use disposable razors.

The grave of J.C. Leyendecker in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY

Leyendecker modeled his Arrow Collar Man on his partner of 48 years, Charles Beach. Leyendecker's relationship with Beach began in 1901 when the boy was fifteen years old.^[3]

After living deferentially with Frank and Mary in the same household for two decades, Beach began to recognize newfound strengths, and gradually insinuated into managing Joe's life, until he totally controlled both business affairs and the famed illustrator's social life.

While Beach often organized the famous gala-like social gatherings that Leyendecker was known for in the 1920s, he also contributed largely to Leyendecker's social isolation in his later years. Charles forbade outside contact with the artist in the last months of his life.

Due to his fame as an illustrator, Leyendecker was able to indulge in a very luxurious lifestyle which in many ways embodied the decadence of the Roaring Twenties. However, when commissions began to wane in the 1930s, he was forced to curtail spending considerably. By the time of his death, Leyendecker had let all of the household staff at his New Rochelle estate go, with he and Beach attempting to maintain the extensive estate themselves. Leyendecker left a tidy estate equally split between his sister and Charles. He is buried alongside parents and Frank at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York. Charles's grave site is unknown.

[edit] Body of work

[edit] Leyendecker's influence

"Weapons for Liberty – U.S.A. Bonds." An appeal to youth to sell war bonds through in a scene of a Boy Scout lifting a sword toward Lady Liberty by Leyendecker

As the premier cover illustrator for the enormously popular Saturday Evening Post for much of the first half of the 20th century, Leyendecker's work both reflected and helped mold many of the visual aspects of the era's culture in America. The mainstream image of Santa Claus as a jolly fat man in a red fur-trimmed coat was popularized by Leyendecker, as was the image of the New Year Baby. The tradition of giving flowers as a gift on Mother's Day was started by Leyendecker's May 30, 1914 Saturday Evening Post cover depicting a young bellhop carrying hyacinths. It was created as a commemoration of President Woodrow Wilson's declaration of Mother's Day as an official holiday that year.

Leyendecker was a chief influence upon, and friend of, Norman Rockwell, who was a pallbearer at Leyendecker's funeral. In particular, the early work of Norman Rockwell for the Saturday Evening Post bears a strong superficial resemblance to that of Leyendecker. While today it is generally accepted that Norman Rockwell established the best-known visual images of Americana, in many cases they are derivative of Leyendecker's work, or reinterpretations of visual themes established by Rockwell's idol.

The visual style of Leyendecker's art inspired the graphics in The Dagger of Amon Ra, a game for the PC. The museum in the game is named for Leyendecker, and the box art for the game is based on Leyendecker's cover for the March 18, 1905 issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

Leyendecker's drawing style was cited as a major influence on the character designs of Team Fortress 2, a first person shooter game for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

[edit] Notable clients

[edit] See also

Scouting portal

• National Museum of American Illustration

[edit] Further reading

• Schau, Michael. J.C. Leyendecker. Watson-Guptill Publication. ISBN 0823027570. 
• Steine, Kent; Taraba, Frederic B.. J.C. Leyendecker Collection, The. Collectors Press. ISBN 0963520296. 
• Cutler, Laurence S.; Cutler, Judy Goffman. J.C. Leyendecker: American imagist. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810995212. 
• Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II. Routledge; London. 2002. ISBN 0-415-15983-0. 

• The J. C. Leyendecker Poster Book. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1975.

• Leyendecker, J.C. "Keeping Posted." Saturday Evening Post, October 15, 1938, 108.

• Martin, Richard. "Fundamental Icon: J.C. Leyendecker's Male Underwear Imagery." Textile and Text 15, no. 1 (1992): 19-32.

• Martin, Richard. "Gay Blades: Homoerotic Content in J.C. Leyendecker's Gillette Advertising Images." Journal of American Culture 18, no. 2 (1995): 75-82.

• Martin, Richard. "What Is Man!: The Imagery of Male Style of J.C. Leyendecker and Giorgio Armani." Textile and Text 13, no. 1 (1990): 3-27.

• Meyer, Susan E. "J.C. Leyendecker." In America's Great Illustrators, 136-59. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1978.

• Rockwell, Norman. My Adventures as an Illustrator as Told to Thomas Rockwell. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1960.

• Segal, Eric Jefferson. "Realizing Whiteness in U.S. Visual Culture: The Popular Illustration of J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, and the Saturday Evening Post, 1917-1945." PhD Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles, 2002.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Leyendecker biography, with illustrations from BPIB Illustrators page
• Leyendecker artwork can be viewed at American Art Archives web site.
• J.C. Leyendecker Memorial at Find A Grave