J. C. Leyendecker

Joseph Christian Leyendecker (March 23,1874 - July 25, 1951) was a popular American illustrator. Of Dutch ancestry, born in Germany, he emigrated to the United States at the age of eight in 1882 from Montabaur, Germany with his parents, Peter Leyendecker and Elizabeth née Oreseifen, his sister, Augusta, and two brothers, Francis Xavier "Frank" Leyendecker (who like J.C., was gay), and Adolph Leyendecker (who was not.)

 

He obtained a job at an engraving company, and attended the Chicago Art Institute under Vanderpoel, and five years later attended, with his brother Frank, the Academie Julian in Paris.

 

On his return to America he obtained major advertising and illustrating commissions.

 

His subject matter was male pulchritude presented for the masses, and was featured in advertising campaigns (notably for the Arrow Shirt and Hart, Schaffner & Marx), and on magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, for which he did over 300 illustrations over forty years.

 

In 1914 the brothers built an estate in New Rochelle, New York, where they, their sister, and Charles Beach (1886-1952), J.C.'s lover and model (he was the "Arrow Shirt Man"), lived.

 

He was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1977.

 

 

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Gallery pictures: inside

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.