A creature of such magnificence that he seemed to have been created on a different scale and shape for another, more Olympian, Universe. . .he was all the Arrow collar young men, all the football heroes for the covers of the Saturday Evening Post...all the young men in the Kuppenheimer clothing ads, he was all of these rolled into one, and he was something more than all that.
Like Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth, Leyendecker was a famous illustrator who drew hundreds of covers for The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and other magazines. The two artists were friends -- Rockwell was a pallbearer at Leyendecker's funeral. But their styles and themes could not be more different.
Small, timid, humdrum lives in small towns.
Domestic spaces
Heternormative boy-meets-girl-themes
Probably heterosexual, though he sometimes crushed on his male models.
Leyendecker
Brash, bold, glittering lives in Manhattan, Hollywood, and Chicago
Homoerotic spaces
Endless beefcake and appreciative male gazes.
Gay, often used his lover Charles Beach as a model.
His work was coded so that gay audiences "in the know" would catch the homoerotic content, while heterosexuals stayed oblivious.
His are is a celebration of masculine beauty and same sex desire- and it was published on the cover of magazines aimed at middle America- amazing he was gay in plain sight
ReplyDeleteThe only Norman Rockwell cover which is vaguely homoerotic is "The Rookie"
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Rockwell did paint No Swimming, about boys swimming. Naked. But they are actual children, so not erotic. But (largely because of Boomerism) anything that suggested a greater national identity, responsibility to one's fellow man, or shined a light on America's dark side for more than oppression porn was "corny".
ReplyDeleteOkay, there's my rant about, well, pretty much the entire Baby Boom generation.
The wrestling cover is pretty blatant, but I doubt many hets read Physical Culture. (Also, I'm font-shsming the use of V's for U's in the 20th century.) Though yeah, in general, wartime propaganda is pretty gay.
Leyendecker struck me as more affluent suburbs than truly urban, at least that guy with the golf club. And remember, golf clubs were always a symbol of wealth. A good set cost hundreds of dollars even back then, and implied you could travel to other courses. The other expensive sports were croquet, tennis, and all things equestrian. We also see a black suit in the background, more an indication of his wealth. He probably commutes to Manhattan.