"Study for Butterfly Couple " Lot no. 3989
By Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951)
1923 (Estimated)
17.00" x 13.00"
Oil on Canvas
Unsigned
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A stunning study for a 1920s Kuppenheimer clothing advertisement featuring a fashionably-dressed couple kneeling in an embrace before a pair of colorful butterfly wings. The prolific Joseph Christian Leyendecker is recognized for his profound influence on American visual culture during the first three decades of the 20th century, notably through his captivating advertisements for Kuppenheimer and Arrow Collars, as well as the 322 covers he produced for The Saturday Evening Post.
Exhibitions: Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Old Corner House Museum, The Illustrator's Moment, July-October 1978New York, Grand Cental Art Galleries, American Illustrators-The Twenties-Adventure, Suspense, Romance, and Humor, May 1979Chicago, Illinois, Union League Club, An American Vision, December 1984, illustrated pl. 14, p. 10Roslyn, New York, Nassau County Museum of Art, Art and Fashion: From Marie Antoinette to Jacqueline Kennedy, May-August 2006, p. 45, illustrated in color
Literature: Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, J.C. Leyendecker: American Imagist, New York, 2008, p. 60, illustrated in color p. 61
Explore related art collections: 1920s / Studies / Romance / Advertisements / $100,000 & Above / Fashion
See all original artwork by Joseph Christian Leyendecker
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was born in Montabaur, Germany, and came to America at the age of eight. Showing an early interest in painting, he got his first job at 16 in a Chicago engraving house on the strength of some larger pictures he had painted on kitchen oilcloth. In the evenings after work, he studied under Vanderpoel at the Chicago Art Institute, and saved for five years to be able to go to France and attend the Academie Julian in Paris.
Upon his return, as a thoroughly trained artist with immense technical facility, Leyendecker had no difficulty in obtaining top commissions for advertising illustrations and cover designs for the leading publications. His first Post cover was done in 1899, and he did well over 300 more during the next 40 years. Among the most famous of these was his annual New Years Baby series.
His advertising illustrations made his clients famous. The Arrow Collar Man was a byword for the debonair, handsome male, and women wrote thousands of love letters to him in care of Cluett Peabody & Company. His illustrations for Kuppenheimer Clothes were equally successful in promoting an image of suited elegance. He was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1977.A major retrospective exhibition of Leyendecker's work was mounted at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1997-98.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was born in Montabaur, Germany, and came to America at the age of eight. Showing an early interest in painting, he got his first job at 16 in a Chicago engraving house on the strength of some larger pictures he had painted on kitchen oilcloth. In the evenings after work, he studied under Vanderpoel at the Chicago Art Institute, and saved for five years to be able to go to France and attend the Academie Julian in Paris.
Upon his return, as a thoroughly trained artist with immense technical facility, Leyendecker had no difficulty in obtaining top commissions for advertising illustrations and cover designs for the leading publications. His first Post cover was done in 1899, and he did well over 300 more during the next 40 years. Among the most famous of these was his annual New Years Baby series.
His advertising illustrations made his clients famous. The Arrow Collar Man was a byword for the debonair, handsome male, and women wrote thousands of love letters to him in care of Cluett Peabody & Company. His illustrations for Kuppenheimer Clothes were equally successful in promoting an image of suited elegance. He was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1977.A major retrospective exhibition of Leyendecker's work was mounted at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1997-98.
Kent Steine