American illustrator. 1874-1951. American (German-born).

Leyendecker is known primarily for his magazine covers for Success, Colliers, and The Saturday Evening Post as well as his elegant and lucrative advertising work for Arrow Collar, Kuppenheimer Clothing, and other companies in the 1920s and 30s. He settled in New Rochelle, New York, which became a haven for illustrators in the 1920s. The young Norman Rockwell idolized Leyendecker, with whom he was friendly and social. (Leyendecker was the only person to illustrate more SEP covers than Rockwell did, the former clocking in at 322.)

Leyendecker’s creation, the “Arrow-Collar Man,” modeled from his long-term companion Charles Beach, became an iconic figure, helping to define fashion trends. The Arrow-Collar man makes an appearance in the text of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Laird Borrelli-Persson wrote in Vogue in June 2017: “The Arrow Collar Man was an early 20th-century sex symbol who, in his day, had about as large a place in the pantheon of hotness as Rudolph Valentino, Elvis, and the Marlboro man. This sophisticated yet implicitly sybaritic sex symbol hawked the wares of the Troy, New York–based Cluett, Peabody & Co., Inc., purveyors of detachable crisp collars and cuffs, which men attached to the body of their dress shirts. The Arrow Collar Man predates Jay Gatsby by 20 years, and, critics believe, is referenced when Daisy Buchanan says to Gatsby: “You always look so cool. You resemble the advertisement of the man . . . you know, the advertisement of the man.”

“The man,” chiseled, detached, suave, and handsome beyond belief, was selling “not just a shirt but the promise of urban sophistication,” says biographer Deborah Solomon. So potent was the Arrow Collar Man’s All-American allure that the company is said to have received thousands of pieces of fan mail. Arrow would be referenced in Cole Porter lyrics and inspire a Broadway play, Helen of Troy, New York. All of this inspired by a drawing. The male equivalent of the omnipresent Gibson Girl, the Arrow Collar Man emerged in 1905 [Dowd note: if appearing in ads stuffed with text at that point, unlike his minimal poster ads circa 1930] during…a boom time for the young but growing advertising industry. Dreamed up by the Calkins & Holden agency with ad man Charles M. Connolly, he was born of the pen of J. C. Leyendecker…”

J. C. Leyendecker, Arrow Collar Advertisement, 1932.

“The man” mentioned by Daisy Buchanan received thousands of fan-letters, including some marriage proposals, at the peak of his popularity.

Leyendecker’s work is frankly homoerotic: his glistening beefcake men, languid, mannish women, and sublimated sexual imagery (see tulip watering) seem quite evident today. But during Leyendecker’s lifetime the criminalization of gay sex made discretion critical. So despite his fame and renown, he kept an extremely low public profile. At his death in 1951, as per his instructions, Charles Beach burned all of his surviving papers and every trace of his personal life.

Joe Leyendecker, as he was known to Rockwell and other friends, had a talented brother, Frank, who published under “F. X. Leyendecker." Frank’s career was briefer than Joe’s: by reports unwelcome in the orbit of Charles Beach, and dogged by drug addiction, F.X. Leyendecker died in 1924, possibly of suicide via morphine.

The surviving Leyendecker’s style fell out of favor by the 1940s, and though he still found illustration work, his income and commissions dwindled significantly until his death.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker (J. C.)