On the Facebook group "The Golden Age of Illustration", contributor John Ingle wrote about a current exhibit featuring JC Leyendecker's work at The New York Historical Society Museum & Library.
UNDER COVER: J.C. LEYENDECKER AND AMERICAN MASCULINITY
The New York Historical Society
NYC
May 5, 2023 - August 13, 2023
PS - If you're a New York resident and have a valid library card, you can see this exhibit free (and even take a guest) by using Culture Pass.
As many Richard Amsel fans will know, Leyendecker had a profound influence on the artist's work, and Amsel paid direct homage to him with his legendary poster for THE STING.
Leyendecker's oeuvre also had a major (albeit indirect) impact on reigniting my interest in Amsel's life and career, which spiraled into this documentary. I attended a Leyendecker art exhibit in Fullerton, CA back in late 2007, and was immediately reminded of Amsel's work. And so my obsession began...
From the Historical Society's website:
A new exhibition examines the work and influence of J.C. Leyendecker (1874–1951), a preeminent illustrator and commercial artist who helped shape American visual culture in the first three decades of the 20th century through captivating advertising campaigns including the legendary “Arrow Collar Man” and countless covers for the Saturday Evening Post. As a gay artist whose illustrations for a mainstream audience often had unspoken homoerotic undertones, his work is especially revealing for what it says about the cultural attitudes towards homosexuality of the period.
The exhibition showcases 19 of the artist’s original oil paintings and a wealth of related ephemera, and features both Leyendecker’s editorial work, such as magazine covers, as well as commercial illustrations that appeared in the pages of popular publications, on roadside billboards, in store windows, and on mass transit. Laying the groundwork of Leyendecker’s implied gay narratives, these ads starred fashionable men in stylish settings engaged in activities such as boating, golfing, or reading in men’s clubs.
Under Cover delves into the early politics of sexual identity and gender while simultaneously examining how Leyendecker helped establish a nationalistic ideal of elite and athletic white male beauty. To address this aspect of his work, the exhibition juxtaposes some of Leyendecker’s paintings with artifacts that offer counter-narratives to his works’ exclusionary nature, including depictions of fashionable African American men during the Harlem Renaissance, as well as a selection of contemporaneous advertisements with homoerotic connotations and a digital show of images depicting gay culture in New York during Leyendecker’s time.
Under Cover is organized by New-York Historical from the collection of the National Museum of American Illustration, Newport, RI. The show is guest-curated by Donald Albrecht, and coordinated at New-York Historical by Rebecca Klassen, curator of material culture.
All photos by John Ingle.
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