J. C. LeyendeckerIf you lot were to ask nigh people to proper noun the most successful American illustrator of the commencement half of the 20th Century, who was a classically trained creative person and main craftsman, who was in large part responsible for the pop image nosotros have of Santa Claus, who created the notion of using a baby to represent the New Year in illustrations, whose productive career spanned 50 years, who basically invented the await of 20th Century magazine cover design, and who painted more Sabbatum Evening Post covers than any other artist — the answer would invariably be "Norman Rockwell", an reply that would just every bit invariably be wrong.

In fact, this is a description of Joseph Christian Leyendecker, whose position of relative modern obscurity compared to Rockwell simply boggles my heed. Leyendecker was a fantastic illustrator whose paintings are marvels of design, draughtsmanship and the beautifully controlled application of color.

At a fourth dimension when illustrators of his stature were treated like current day stone stars, Leyendecker led a very private life, perhaps to keep his human relationship with Charles Beach, his model, manager, banana and companion, out of the public eye. His creations became stars in their own correct, though.

Leyendecker's nearly famous illustrations were the series he created for Arrow Shirts featuring the "Arrow Neckband Homo", an elegantly dapper guy who received thousands of fan letters and marriage proposals from swooning women, and who set standards for what was considered a masculine platonic at the time (sort of a male version of the Gibson Girl). The campaign was notable as being 1 of the starting time to deliberately sell a "lifestyle" instead of just a product.

Leyendecker besides set new standards for illustration art. He and his brother Frank X. Leyendecker, also a terrific and nether-appreciated illustrator, studied in Paris at the famed Académie Julian when William Bouguereau, the Academician'southward Academician and a superb painter, was its director. They attracted much attention even so equally talented art students amidst the best in Europe, in precipitous contrast to their current lack of attention. Frank receives even less attending than Joseph, apparently in his blood brother's shadow in posterity as well equally in life.

Norman Rockwell was a great admirer of Leyedecker, who he considered the ideal for which he aimed when he began doing Post covers. He somewhen became friends with the Leyendecker brothers and a affiliate in his autobiography is ane of the few personal accounts that exist from those who knew them.

Leyendecker had a tremendous impact on other illustrators. His work is dazzling in its technical proficiency, beautifully composed and designed, and drawn with the kind of flair and refined skill that but comes to the best of the best. He would make the application of pigment (supposedly with a secret proprietary oil painting medium) appear as office of the design, with strokes of color defining the form in his paintings the way hatching is used in drawings, and often allowing parts of the underpainting prove through.

He was also a genius for finding "the straight within the curved", and his figures have a sharp, well-baked geometry that makes them really snap. Seemingly uncomplicated things like folds in material became wonders of painted design, zig-zagging valleys of carefully controlled colour, highlighted with those astonishing strokes of color hatching.

Leyendecker reportedly worked in stages, creating many small-calibration studies from which he would then construct the whole using the traditional technique of "squaring upwardly" to transfer to the larger sheet. The American Art Archives site has a great page of his studies that is non to be missed by anyone interested in the techniques of one of the bang-up illustrators.

I mentioned Leyendecker in my post on Thanksgiving ii days ago and Shane White left a comment virtually a electric current Leyendecker testify I wasn't aware of. For those fortunate enough to alive within attain, there is a Leyendecker exhibit titled J. C. Leyendecker: America's "Other" Illustrator, at The Haggin Museum in Stockton, California that continues through the cease of Dec.

J.C Schau's monograph J. C. Leyendecker (cover shown at left, bottom) is long out of print, as is The J. C. Leyendecker Drove: American Illustrators Affiche Volume past Frederic B. Taraba, though you may be able to find them with used book searches through Amazon and elsewhere. There is a good chapter on Leyendecker in Susan E. Meyer's America'southward Great Illustrators, a terrific book that can be found used for under $15. If nothing else, expect for them in libraries so you can get a feeling for how great his work looks in print.

I've assembled what resources I tin can find for you beneath. American Art Archives is the all-time, but I would love to know of others I may have missed. Perchance if enough interest is generated from the show, and a little buzz gets going on the web, we might exist able to convince a publisher to cough up a new book on this fantastic and amazingly underappreciated artist.