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| J.C. Leyendecker | 
 enlarge | Authors: Laurence S. Cutler, Judy Goffman Cutler
Publisher: Abrams
Category: Book
List Price: $50.00
Buy New: $29.28
You Save: $20.72 (41%)
New (19) Used (4) from $29.28
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 7843
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.3
Dimensions (in): 11.1 x 9.7 x 0.7
ISBN: 0810995212
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.652092
EAN: 9780810995215
ASIN: 0810995212
Publication Date: November 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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Product Description
One of the most prolific and successful artists of the Golden Age of American Illustration, J. C. Leyendecker captivated audiences throughout the first half of the 20th century. Leyendecker is best known for his creation of the archetype of the fashionable American male with his advertisements for Arrow Collar. These images sold to an eager public the idea of a glamorous lifestyle, the bedrock upon which modern advertising was built. He also was the creator instantly recognizable icons, such as the New Year’s baby and Santa Claus, that are to this day an integral part of the lexicon of Americana and was commissioned to paint more Saturday Evening Post covers than any other artist. Leyendecker lived for most of his adult life with Charles Beach, the Arrow Collar Man, on whom the stylish men in his artwork were modeled. The first book about the artist in more than 30 years, J. C. Leyendecker features his masterworks, rare paintings, studies, and other artwork, including the 322 covers he did for the Post. With a revealing text that delves into both his artistic evolution and personal life, J. C. Leyendecker restores this iconic image maker’s rightful position in the pantheon of great American artists.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Shameful Oversight! A Phony Painting on Pages 98-99. October 17, 2008
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
Samir - I just read your review from yesterday. I acknowledge that this additional compilation showcasing Leyendecker's abilities and genius is long overdue. Michael Schau's book of almost 35 years ago was limited in many areas. The printing technology had not approached today's standards and abilities and there was very little information available on J. C. Leyendecker. The internet and digital processes changed all of that. The printing in this new book is much better than anything available before, but the reproduction of images falls very short of today's abilities. Maybe there were budget limitations that restricted the proofing and fine-tuning. Nice to see the larger reproductions of Leyendecker's original paintings, which brings me to one of the major problems! On page 98-99, a reader is exposed to a 2-page reproduction of a painting - supposedly done for the Arrow Comp. This should be one of the motherlode pictures - especially since JCL was so instrumental in creating Arrow's popularity. Many people associate Leyendecker with creating the "great Gatsby look" and developing the image of the ideal man. Unfortunately, a viewer is smacked with a COUNTERFEIT - a Leyendecker forgery. This is not the painting that Leyendecker created for Arrow Collars! In fact, it is only a 2nd-rate knock-off. Many readers might not recognize that fact but the original Arrow Collar advertisements do not lie. 100% FAKE!
Do the authors not know the difference? How were the pictures chosen for this book? Maybe the Cutlers only wrote the biographical part of this book. Attention purchasers! There is so much innuendo and fiction in the reading, it is hard for a person to de-code what is real and what is totally fabricated. Only 12 footnotes for a biographical work of this scope? The authors have contrived details where there weren't any. They have concocted stories from the inaccurate details. If you want to buy the book, do it because you love the work of J. C. Leyendecker. The quality of the pictures is better than anything published yet - but the rambling paragraphs are sometimes a joke - especially the paragraph about Charles Beach tending to Leyendecker when he collapsed from a heart attack. Do the authors expect any reader to accept the details of that event as fact? C'mon! Please Mr. & Mrs Cutler, don't insult your readers - the people that eagerly paid almost $50-dollars for a book that reads as one big April-Fool's joke.
I feel like I should be given a rebate - or refund. Authors should stick to what they know as fact - don't make up details when they aren't available. Omissions are understandable - but this book shouldn't be regarded as fiction.
Tom Schacks
 FIVE STARS!!!! Finally!!! September 26, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Having waited for YEARS for a good book on Leyendecker, the wait is over. We not only have one but two. I am very happy with this product. The reproductions are very good. While the book does catalog all of the artists covers (SEP, Colliers, etc), the result is well done. Typically, there are nine covers on one page and on the facing page is a repo of the actual artwork from one of the covers. I think almost all of the full page images reproduced are from original artwork, and not reproductions of magazine covers. Very nice. Sure... it would be great to have all of the covers shown in full page glorious color, but we dont and we wont. It still deserves five stars. There are many "sketches" in oil shown that were created as studies, many of which are stunning in and of themselves. Also shown are advertising illustrations. Great!
Regarding the text, move on if your are looking for detail on the artist life. There is really nothing new here. There has always been little know about the artist and his boyfriend. Leyendecker was a profoundly private person, the result of which is that there is little personal information available. What is written is interesting, but of minor interest. Who is buying this book for the text? Please.
It will be interesting to compare the two books. But as it now stands, this one is easily worth the price and five stars!
 Wonderful collection of Leyendecker artwork ... BUT ... September 24, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful collection of J.C.Leyendecker's artwork and a must own for illustrators and lovers of Leyendecker's art. It's quite worth the asking price. My only complaint about the artwork shown, is that so much of the Saturday Evening Post covers are just too small to appreciate like they should be, however, that's understandable as if they were four per page, then that would be one huge book.
But the real reason I have a disappointement with the book is in the writing. That's why I didn't give it the full five stars the artwork alone deserves. If the authors could have only left their personal beliefs about Leyendecker's life out of the writing and focused on the historical facts. (To the author's, while I'm sure you believe that the "facts" you presented are facts to you, because you believe them, that simply doesn't make them facts to everyone else, whether you think it should be or not.) It's a shame when authors writing biographies place their own interpretations of another person's life down as fact. And that's what more or less detracts from the whole experience of the book.
Other than that, kudos to well put together archive of Leyendecker artwork.
 HOMOPHOBIC FABRICATED ACCOUNT! November 14, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
The Forgeries are just a bonus to the reader! I am so disappointed with the inaccuracies found in this book! Let's address the counterfeit issue for a moment. Lots of people are documenting specific paintings as copies, duplicates, forgeries, etc. Judy Cutler is the self-proclaimed and acknowledged expert on J. C. Leyendecker so how could she not identify a phony painting? Isn't she the country's biggest dealer of Leyendecker original paintings? Maybe her real specialty is only Norman Rockwell. After these faux pas, any claims of Leyendecker expertise should be instantly removed from her resume'. I now understand that there are more than just the counterfeit painting identified on pages 98 & 99. Another Leyendecker blogger, who obviously knows his way around a JCL painting or two, says the painting on page 75 is also fake. The blogger urged readers to compare it with the one in Michael Schau's book and he is correct. Yet another Leyendecker blog-member thinks the matador painting reeks of fraud. I don't know that painting so I reserve my comment.
It makes a person wonder why fakes would have been included. One example could be a mistake, two counterfeit appearances would be unfortunate, but more than several inclusions indicate a trend that cannot be explained away by the authors. Also, there is no way that the picture on page 37 is Charles Beach. Impossible. How can they substantiate that male, although quite handsome, is Charles Beach. I have a copy of the Poster Design Magazine from the mid 1920's and there are two very clear photographs of Beach. More research was surely needed on the part of the Cutlers. Many Leyendecker fans/groupies identify each handsome Leyendecker model as Charles Beach but they are usually mistaken. Once a person can actually see Beach's face and absorb his characteristic features, his image is instantly identifiable! But when an author doesn't have all of the proper facts they should not include an imposter image or a substitute picture. Do the Cutlers think no one will call them out on this?
It is my opinion that Judy and Laurence Cutler assembled and wrote the majority of the biographical nonsense that appears in this book. Their comments regarding Leyendecker's sexual preferences are especially offputting and smack of biased homophobia and mis-statement of facts.
Mr. and Ms. Cutler often generalize and insert fantasy stories to entertain the readers. I consider myself a scholar of the gay culture in America and my research has focused on the homosexual environments and lifestyles of 1910-1930. My works have been published often and I always credit my sources of information. Mr. and Ms. Cutler should try writing only the information that can be substantiated. How many pages would be eliminated from this Leyendecker book if they had adopted that approach? Subtract the fake pictures, subtract the superfluous writing by an Architect?, remove all of the sub-standard reproductions that display unbalanced color, what's left? Not much at all. This book retails for fifty dollars. If you must buy it, understand what you are getting - 50% accurate content and 50% accurate pictures.
HILARIOUSLY INACCURATE November 2, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Any new book about Leyendecker is a welcome event. This volume is an ambitious effort with many excellent images. Try to focus on the pictures and avert your eyes from the text, which is hilariously inaccurate.
As just one example, the authors write: "After Leyendecker's precedent-setting career, Charles Livingston Bull, John Clymer, Steven Dohanos, John Falter, Anton Otto Fisher, Harrison Fisher, James Montgomery Flagg, Charles Dana Gibson, J.F. Kernan, Frederic Remington, Robert Riggs, N.C. Wyeth, and other famous artists went on to make their names with the Post." It's hard to imagine how a sentence could be more wrong. Several of the listed artists (Remington, Gibson, Fisher, Wyeth) "made their name" BEFORE Leyendecker made his, and were in fact dead before the end of Leyendecker's "precedent-setting career." Other artists on their list (Bull and Flagg) were Leyendecker's contemporaries, NOT his successors. Flagg was far more famous in their lifetime than Leyendecker. But most importantly, it's hard to think of more than two (or at most, three) from this list of illustrators who actually "made their names with the Post." Some did not work for the Post at all.
Such errors are common in this book-- apparently, the authors feel free to simply make such things up (although based on the number of rave reviews the book is receiving, most readers don't know enough about the subject to tell the difference.)
Putting factual errors aside, the authors would've had room for more (and larger) images if they had been willing to let go of a few pet fixations, such as Leyendecker's gay relationship with model Charles Beach. It is certainly appropriate for the authors to note that the famed Arrow man "was not only a homosexual but a kept man, the live-in lover of the famed artist who thrust himself into such an exalted status," but 200 pages later their focus on "thrusting" continues unabated. We are still reading that "Charles Beach and Joe Leyendecker are held up as examples of monogamy among the gay community, so often criticized for promiscuity," or that "Charles' Dorian Gray image never [ages] in Joe's eyes nor in ours either" or that "members of the gay community [remember Leyendecker] for icons of masculinity and sensitivity." After a while, these musings become presumptuous and insulting to the gay community.
Finally, on a personal note, I believe that a biographer has an obligation to avoid using his or her subject as a platform for self-aggrandizement. It is amazing how many of the "milestones" of Leyendecker's life took place long after his death, and coincidentally are centered around the authors' own gallery shows and sales of Leyendecker's work, or around their promotion of the term "imagist" to describe his work, or around public relations for their illustration museum. The art of public relations is very different from the art of painting, and this would have been a better book if the authors had the restraint to keep the two separate.
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