J.C. Leyendecker Studies!!!!

[JoshuaTheJames]

http://www.americanartarchives.com/l...jc_studies.htm

I can't believe I've never seen this till now!

enjoy,

-JtJ

[Shelly Wan]

Freaking awesome! Thanks Joshua!

[Seedling]

Wow, thanks!

[Kortez]

Thanks so much !

[Senira]

I didn't know about Leyendecker until I grabbed a book on famous American illustrators from the library; now I adore his work. It's amazing the artists you discover from random library books.

[Diego]

great find joshua, thank you for sharing this.

[NoSeRider]

http://www.americanartarchives.com/artist_bios.htm

I assumed you guys knew about this website?

Go to the main link posted above....it's like going through a candy store.

[blog]

wow thanks a lot JTJ!!

[mir]

Thanks
I found some covers here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mamluke...7594057478404/

[Ben Mauro]

double thanks!

[Beelow]

How was that show btw? Damn that sucked that I could not go with you and Andy. Holla and thanx for posting these! XD

[jester]

I don't know if you know these links:
http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/...less-talk.html
http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/...n-realism.html

Jester

[emily g]

Holy cow! Jester, where have you been?

[Hanuka]

haha, yeah, hi jester. that is some fine stuff, some of which i haven't seen before.
two years ago I wrote a 15 page piece on him for school and had gathered some pretty rare material. if i find it, i'll put it up.

[8iorek]

I hate to say it, but most believe that the American Art Archives "JC Leyendecker studies" are not authentic. They were done by art students who learned by copying Leyendecker's work. They were sold at auction as art "in the school of" Leyendecker, but the purchaser chose to re-label them as Leyendecker's art. To my knowledge, here is not one established authority on Leyendecker or illustration art generally who believes these are by Leyendecker. If you compare them to Leyendecker's real studies, the difference in quality and technique is immediately apparent.

[Bowlin]

Hey 8iorek, Is there any online pictures of his studies? or a particular book of his studies that you know of?

[8iorek]

Bowlin, I know that Illustration Magazine has been contemplating an article devoted to Leyebdecker's studies, but it has not yet come out. Fred Taraba's book on Leyendecker has some of his studies. Illustration House gallery sells them from time to time, and the Norman Rockwell museum displayed some during their big Leyendecker show. But mostly they are spread out in private collections and hard to find. Unfortunately, I don't know any internet source with quality pictures of his studies.

[Bowlin]

(Sorry for a late reply) Thanks for the post 8iorek!

[Elwell]

Unfortunately, I don't know any internet source with quality pictures of his studies.

There are some here and here, with links to nice big jpegs. (Courtesy of David Apatoff's excellent Illustration Art blog.)
The quality of these is obviously quite different than the American Art Archives collection.

[Elwell]

Here are some more that were linked to in the Haggin Museum Leyendecker show thread.

[Elwell]

Here's one that just went for $10,000 at Illustration House.

[asoir]

wow, i'm amazed i haven't heard of him, absolutely incredible. thanks for the links!

[Felicia]

Some more Leyendecker Saturday Evening Post covers:
http://www.jcleyendecker.blogspot.com/

[NoSeRider]

http://www.cityoffullerton.com/civic...t=1&Entry=1198

For all you guys hang'n out in Southern California.

[chaosrocks]

oddly on thT LIST of american illustrators I miss, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Tasha Tudor, and Kate greenway all the women :p
and Rackham isn't american
But its a great and wonderful resource anyway
thanks for posting it

[kev ferrara]

I strongly believe that the link provided byJoshua the James on this thread is to a different, rather weak, artists studies of already finished leyendecker pictures.

There are several reasons for this: Leyendecker never worked on a dark ground (because that goes against the entire point of him painting with transparent shadow colors (based on cadmiums) which give that 'glow' effect. He certainly never drew in white chalk outline (look at any of his authentic studies, many of which I have seen in person) Leyendecker didn't do black and white studies to my knowledge. He certainly didn't need to pack together his studies like on some of these to "save space"... considering he was fabulously wealthy during most of his working life.

He never drew poorly, like on some of those wretched master studies. There is no evidence that he did any master copies at all... why would he? Maybe back in his school days, but not during the prime of his working life. Some of the studies are for pictures that were done decades apart. And on some of these "studies" you can see the exact same rendering as on the finished pieces, whereas on his authenticated studies you can see how much more information was contained in his work from life... and how energetic he was. These studies are fakes and the guy who owns them, and I have talked to him about it, will not accept that fact. You'll notice no reputable illustration authority (like somebody from Illustration House, or Charles Martignette, or The Goffmans') have been consulted.

Elwell's post is the *real* deal. Accept no substitutes.

kev

[kev ferrara]

Here's some Leyendecker studies I found on the net earlier in the year (my jaz disk where I had a gig worth of illustration stuff, has crapped out recently... extremely sad... would've been able to show you every Leyendecker study that has appeared on the net in the last 5 years... ah well... gotta try data recovery at some point..)

Enjoy...

[Ellingsworth]

Hot damn, the energy, motion and colors, absolutely brilliant stuff... Kev are those triangle/square pencil marks behind his paintings a way of gridding he used?

[kev ferrara]

Ellingsworth... I think he used those as grids to transfer the studies to canvas. This is a classic old school method.

Btw, you will further notice that the studies appearing on the link that JoshuatheJames provided, that none of these grid lines appear. Further proof that those are copies of leyendecker originals, not studies.

[kingshaj]

amazing!
such a great techincal resource...!
its daunting, the amount of prep work and studies he did for a given piece !