J.C. Leyendecker: America’s ‘Other’ Illustrator At William King Art Center

In their book, the Cutlers suggest that Leyendecker shied away from the limelight and "an adoring public" because he was "a homosexual when it was impossible to live such a life openly." To ensure his privacy and "conceal his gay lifestyle, Leyendecker meticulously cleansed his files and records of anything homosexually explicit or implicit."

Born in Montabaur, Germany, Leyendecker emigrated to Chicago with his family in 1882, when he was 8 years old. After showing early promise in drawing, he apprenticed at age 16 with an engraving firm, advancing to become a full-time staff artist while studying at the Chicago Art Institute. He won some magazine cover competitions and at 19 created 60 images for an illustrated edition of the Bible. "Rebekah at the Well," 1893, is an accomplished but static example.

With his prize winnings and savings, Leyendecker and his artistically talented younger brother, Francis Xavier ("Frank" or "F.X.," 1878–1924) studied in Paris for a year at the Académie Julian under the tutelage of neoclassical academic painter William Adolphe Bouguereau and others. Touring around Paris, they were exposed to Impressionism and popular Art Nouveau advertising posters by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his compatriots.

Returning to Chicago in 1897, the brothers set up a studio in the Chicago Stock Exchange. J.C.'s "Advertisement for Chicago Evening Post," 1898, reflected his European training in a serious plea for book-reading, bolstered by allegorical figures.

About this time, the brothers formulated a credo to prod them to produce their best work on time. "Buy more than you can afford," it declared. "If every day you have to save yourself from ruin, every day you'll work." When they were young and successful, the concept generated a race to see who could outdo the other. "They made and spent large sums of money," Haggin officials note, "dwarfing the previous income benchmarks for an illustrator."

In Chicago, J.C. began his long association with Collier's magazine, for whom he created nearly 50 covers, and The Saturday Evening Post for well more than 300 covers. During his 43 years with The Post , Leyendecker helped formulate the modern magazine cover as a special art form, sort of a small poster that quickly communicated its message. "His covers were animated by people and themes that resonated with his audience," say officials of the Haggin, "because of his ability to capture and convey a range of human emotions and situations in his hallmark style of wide, crisp and controlled brushstrokes accented by bold highlights."

An early Post cover, "Boy Reciting for Teacher," 1909, with a carefully dressed youngster emoting for his bespectacled teacher, who has already received an apple, puts one in mind of Rockwell's later covers. As do the well-dressed young man being greeted by his aging mother and eager dog in "Welcome Home," 1914, and the youngster in distress as dogs wrestle for control of the meat he is carrying home in "Barking Up the Wrong Turkey," 1926. Leyendecker and Rockwell had the ability to use their art to dramatize nostalgic, everyday incidents among ordinary people.

At the height of his career, Leyendecker's "Queen of Spring," 1931, filled most of the cover space with the lovely royal's colorful, decorative gown and an elaborate tower of flowers and birds to the left. It reflects the artist's innate sense of color and composition.

Brother Frank, a skilled artist in his own right, gained early recognition for an acclaimed series of monthly covers for Collier's, 1902–1905 ; for a time, he was better-known than his brother. Competition between the brothers, however, caused F.X. to work at an exhausting pace, while J.C., working at a more disciplined rate, soon outshone his sibling.

In 1900, the brothers set up shop in New York City, and J.C. set out to make a bigger name for himself. "In evaluating how to best promote himself and his work," the Cutlers write, "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." He tried to guarantee that upon seeing his work people would say, "That's a Leyendecker!"

A big sports fan, J.C. turned out perceptive, action-packed sports vignettes for covers and illustrations. The image of a well-padded "Baseball Catcher" appeared on the cover of The Post in 1909, and a dramatic view of a runner sliding head first into a base as the infielder tags his hand graced the cover of The Popular Magazine in 1910. The large question mark above the two ballplayers reflects its title, "Safe or Out?"

Soon after the turn of the century, J.C. secured the menswear commissions that gained him fame and fortune, notably from Cluett, Peabody & Company. The chiseled, well-dressed, handsome men he created for Cluett's Arrow Shirts and Collars, 1905–1930, "established the beau ideal for the sartorially savvy American male," observe folks at the Haggin. The even-featured, elegant gentleman fixing his tie within his Arrow shirt and collar, in "Arrow Collar Study," 1923, epitomizes the attraction of Leyendecker's creation. The image became hugely popular among American women, who flooded the company with fan mail, gifts and marriage proposals addressed to the "Arrow Collar Man."

Before long, the chiseled physiognomies of Leyendecker's men were helping to sell suits and overcoats for B. Kuppenheimer & Co., as represented by the backside silhouette of the slim man in a fitted black suit, 1918, and the man wearing a homburg and belted coat in "Man and Porter," 1921. Each is the height of timeless elegance.

His artwork was also employed to promote automobiles, cigarettes, coffee and soap. One of his most spectacular successes was his series showing cherubic infants, winsome children and wholesome adolescents enjoying bowls of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. The smiling all-American teenager lifting his spoonful of corn flakes in "Kellogg's Kid, Teen Boy," 1916, epitomizes images that won the hearts of American mothers.

In 1914, the brothers' successes enabled them to build a 14-room mansion with separate wings for studios and a splendid garden in New Rochelle, N.Y. The suburb of New York City was already home to famed illustrators Frederic Remington and Rockwell. The latter called him "the great J.C. Leyendecker," and entertained the brothers at dinner. J.C. and Rockwell were friends for more than 25 years.

Their younger sister, Augusta, lived with the brothers, as did the original Arrow Collar model Charles Beach (1886–1952), who had become J.C.'s assistant, business agent and life partner — a relationship that lasted for nearly 50 years. The sprawling house is today the Mount Tom Country Day School.

After the United States entered World War I, Leyendecker joined fellow illustrators Howard Chandler Christy, James Montgomery Flagg and Charles Dana Gibson in making posters to support the nation's war effort. Leyendecker devoted his efforts to promoting the "Third Liberty Loan Campaign Boy Scouts Of America," in "Weapons for Liberty," 1917, in which a stalwart Scout hands a sword inscribed "Be prepared" to a stern figure of Liberty, his head framed by "U*S*A BONDS." He encouraged enlistment in the US Marine Corps with a poster, "Enlist Today, U.S. Marines, Stockton," 1918, showing marines on land and sea defending the California coast.

In 1923, after years of mounting tension at the New Rochelle mansion, Augusta and F.X. moved out. The following year Frank died, greatly affecting J.C., but he forged ahead. He lost many of his advertising clients during the Great Depression, but created more than 90 covers for The Post in the decade following the stock market crash of 1929.

By the end of the 1930s, however, the demand for Leyendecker's imagery had faded. He did his last Post cover soon after the United States entered World War II.

His last significant posters, commissioned by Timkin Roller Bearing Company, were a series of patriotic portraits of military leaders to boost purchase of war bonds. Leyendecker responded with sizable, resolute likenesses of craggy-faced "Clair Chennault of the WWII Flying Tigers," and of square-jawed "Admiral [Harold] Stark." Both painted in 1944, they epitomized the resolute, determined officers who led the US military in that vast conflict.

J.C. Leyendecker died of a heart attack in his New Rochelle home in 1951, and was interred in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery. Rockwell, who by this time had become the premier cover illustrator for The Post , was a pallbearer at the funeral.

After his death, Leyendecker's paintings were widely distributed among museums and private collections. The Haggin Museum's director, Earl Rowland, assembled almost 60 original Leyendecker canvases between 1952 and 1959, the largest museum collection of the artist's work.

That trove forms the basis of this interesting and revelatory traveling exhibition, which exposes new generations to the keen eye, graceful style and impressive brushwork of this undeservedly overlooked master. "J.C. Leyendecker: America's "Other Illustrator" goes a long way toward securing the artist's place in the pantheon of the finest of the nation's illustrators.

The William King Regional Arts Center is at 415 Academy Drive. For information, 276-628-5005 or www.williamkingmuseum.org .