WITH HIS IDEALIZED VISIONS OF AMERICAN MASCULINITY AND ICONIC COVERS FOR THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, THE CELEBRATED ILLUSTRATOR SHAPED THE VISUAL LANGUAGE OF THE EARLY 1900S
By Andrew Nodell
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, artist and German immigrant Joseph Christian Leyendecker idealized American life through his bold, simple and graphic illustrations that appeared in ads for everything from coffee and men’s shirts to safety razors and war bonds. Sarahjane Blum, Heritage Auctions’ Director of Illustration Art, says Leyendecker “set the tone for fashion, sophistication, innocence and nostalgia” with his covers for The Saturday Evening Post. His work graced the cover of the Post more than any other artist, including Norman Rockwell, who is credited with 321 covers to Leyendecker’s 322.
J.C. Leyendecker’s ‘Beat-up Boy, Football Hero’ appeared on the November 21, 1914, cover of ‘The Saturday Evening Post.’ In May 2021, the painting sold at Heritage for a record-breaking $4.12 million.
As a teenager, Leyendecker apprenticed for the Chicago-based printing and engraving company J. Manz & Company while taking night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. His early work included Biblical illustrations and, foreshadowing a significant theme in his oeuvre, advertisements for a local men’s clothier. In 1899, at age 25, he created his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, launching a 44-year career with the ubiquitous weekly magazine, which was the ultimate influencer decades before the birth of social media. As Blum points out, “The Saturday Evening Post told you what you were supposed to be caring about, what you were supposed to be feeling at any given moment.”
Given the breadth of Leyendecker’s creative output, collectors of various categories are drawn to his works. In Beat-up Boy, Football Hero – which realized $4.12 million in a May 2021 Heritage auction, setting a world record for a Leyendecker work – he depicts a young boy in football gear and an eye patch after a particularly rough game with an older group of kids. The illustration, which appeared on a November 1914 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, appeals not only to the straightforward Leyendecker collector but also to those interested in childhood art, sports and American nostalgia.
Leyendecker’s ‘Diving In,’ available in Heritage’s May 16 American Art Signature® Auction, is a quintessential summer image executed in oil for ‘The Saturday Evening Post.’
Other examples of cross-interest can be seen in Leyendecker’s Diving In, a spirited illustration of three boys enjoying a swim for a 1935 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, and in his rare World War I-era illustration Save Coal: Keep the War Fires Burning. The latter work, which is available in Heritage’s May 2 Illustration Art Signature® Auction, exemplifies Leyendecker’s proclivity toward depicting a robust male form, a common motif that has attracted a new set of collectors to the artist in recent decades. Diving In will be offered in Heritage’s May 16 American Art Signature® Auction along with two other works by Leyendecker: Easter, created for an April 1922 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, and Interrupted Picnic, which appeared on an August 1933 cover of the Post.
Commissioned by the United States Fuel Administration, Leyendecker’s 1917 work ‘Save Coal: Keep the War Fires Burning’ is available in Heritage’s May 2 Illustration Art Signature® Auction.
As one of the only openly gay artists of his generation, many of Leyendecker’s male forms are subtly homoerotic, which has made his work more widely desired by current-day collectors who are often drawn to his cross-category appeal. “Earlier generations largely sought works focused on iconography that is more traditionally Americana,” Blum says. “Now we see an increasing number of collectors explicitly seeking Leyendecker pieces that foreground the artist’s queerness in various ways.”
From magazine covers to ads featuring Leyendecker’s famous Arrow Collar Man, many of his works celebrate adult male beauty in ways that appeal to modern audiences. Blum points out the market growth of Leyendecker works that specifically depict masculinity and men interacting with each other. “It reminds you that in 2025, we can build new relationships with these formative illustrations,” she says, “and the illustrators themselves.”
ANDREW NODELL is a contributor to Intelligent Collector.