"First Airplane Ride, Colliers Magazine Cover" Lot no. 4860
By Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951)
1909
26.5" x 18.5", Framed 34.25" x 26.25"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Left
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LITERATURE
Collier's, 28 August 1909, illustrated on the cover
Michael Schau, J.C. Leyendecker, New Y ork, 1974, p. 165, illustrated
Susan E. Meyer, America's Great Illustrators, New Y ork, 1987 , p. 157 , illustrated
Kent Steine and Frederic B. Taraba, American Illustrators
Poster Book: The J.C. Leyendecker Collection, Portland, 1996, n.p., illustrated in color (titled Flying in Style)
Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, J.C. Leyendecker:
American Imagist, New Y ork, 2008, p. 177 , illustrated
EXHIBITION
Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Board, Art of the Illustrator: Works from the Kelly Collection, 1997 , no. 18, illustrated in color (on back cover)
Malibu, Pepperdine University, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Illustrating Modern Life: The Golden Age of American Illustration from the Kelly Collection, 2013, p. 60, illustrated in color
Explore related art collections: Saturday Evening Post Covers / Travel / 1900s / $100,000 & Above / Magazine Covers / Romance / Automotive/Transport
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







