For more on Leyendecker and this exhibition, see Part 1. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/0nyfqQY_ohQ.
1914+: Spring covers
An array of spring covers for the Saturday Evening Post. As always, the variety of concepts astonishes me.
1915: Man Reading in a Circle
Arrow Collar ad.
Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell
Today Norman Rockwell is more famous than J.C. Leyendecker, but as a young man, J.C. was Rockwell’s hero and mentor. Starting with his first cover, in 1916, Rockwell learned (like J.C.) to compress a whole story into an 8 x 12″ Post cover. Occasionally he even paid homage to J.C. by adapting the latter’s covers. In the image below, J.C.’s covers are on the left, Rockwell’s on the right.
1916: Saturday Evening Post cover for July 4th
J.C.’s July 4th covers aim to inspire national pride and remind Americans of why the holiday is celebrated … but like the New Year’s covers, they also reveal the country’s preoccupations at the time. This one was created when the Great War (World War I) had been raging in Europe for two years. The United States sent troops in 1917.
1919: Man in Coat and Scarf
Kuppenheimer clothing ad. This guy in this outfit could walk down the street today and still turn heads.
1920 Record Time / Cool Summer Comfort
A Kuppenheimer ad. The play of light is marvelous: look, for instance, at how it comes through the straw boater onto the face of the man at left.
1921 Saturday Evening Post cover for Thanksgiving
If I were a turkey, I’d run.
1922: Couple on a Boat
Arrow Collar ad. Another favorite of mine – for quite a while, I used this as my computer’s desktop image.
One more post is coming in this Leyendecker series.
More
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