JOSEPH C. LEYENDECKER (1874-1951)
"CONTOUR" ARROW FORM - FIT COLLARS. 1917.

41 3/4x27 3/4 inches, 106x70 1/2 cm. C.P. & Co., New York.
Condition B+ / B: restoration and overpainting along creases, repaired tears and vertical and horizontal folds; overpainted margins; pin holes in corners. Framed.

German-born Leyendecker came to America at the age of eight and entered the advertising world by the time he was sixteen. However, it wasn't until after he had spent five years studying at the Académie Julian in Paris that he matured into a full-fledged illustrator. "His first [Saturday Evening] Post cover was done in 1899, and he did well over 300 more during the next 40 years . . . 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" (The Illustrator in America, p. 150). Here, in a tableau that could be straight out of a modern-day fashion advertisement, one of his chiseled, dashing young men, with oars on his shoulder, stares out at the viewer with the confident assurance of youth. The young lady, fashionable herself behind the wheel of a sports car and beneath a stylish hat, seems to be looking out as well while slyly gazing at her companion in a smitten manner. Rare. We have found only one other example at auction.