Coles Phillips, Life Magazine Cover, 1927(01 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "This Coles Phillips image, created for the cover of Life, is a perfect representation of what Phillips tried to convey: feminine independence viewed through modern 20th century values. Rejected as too provocative by Life, it was eventually used by the less conservative periodical College Humor."
J.C. Leyendecker, Woman Kissing Cupid, 1923 (Saturday Evening Post)(02 of11)
Open Image ModalShow Catalog: "American magazines played a huge role in creating modern holidays as we celebrate them today. Leyendecker created (this) painting on the theme of Easter for The Saturday Evening Post, the most popular magazine of the time. Woman Kissing Cupid updates a Victorian tradition of using an infant cupid to represent Easter."
Coles Phillips, The Magic Hour, 1924 (Oneida Silversmiths Ad)(03 of11)
Open Image ModalShow Catalog: "Coles Phillips began his career on the student newspaper at Kenyon College in his native Ohio. After further study at the Chase School, he began working for major national magazines. In 1909 he developed his signature “Fadeaway Girl.” By incorporating the negative space of the background into the figure, he creates the feeling that the figure is blending into the surrounding space."
J.C. Leyendecker, First Airplane Ride, 1909 (Collier's Weekly)(04 of11)
Open Image ModalShow Catalog: "Leyendecker understood and gave life to the enthusiasm of the first decade of the 20th century. This painting was created in 1909, only six years after the Wright Brothers' first successful manned flight. Depicting a young couple who use a plane to go courting, it emphasizes the pair’s appealing self-confidence. Leyendecker presents them as worldly individuals, possessing both the means to indulge in expensive new luxuries and the poise to take modern inventions in stride."
J.C. Coll, The Mottled Butterfly, 1920 (Redbook Magazine)(05 of11)
Open Image ModalShow Catalog: "Although J.C. Coll received no formal art training as a youth, he developed his talent by studying the works of artists such as Edwin Austin Abbey and Howard Pyle—and particularly those of Spanish artist Daniel Vierge. Specializing in pen-and-ink drawings, he further developed his quick, dramatic line as a young newspaper artist in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. However, it was Coll’s vivid imagination that led to book and magazine commissions to illustrate the exotic stories of Arthur Conan Doyle and Sax Rohmer, to name just two. Unfortunately, Coll’s burgeoning career was cut short by appendicitis, which resulted in his death at age forty."
Howard Pyle, "Dead Men Tell No Tales," 1899 (Collier's Weekly)(06 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "Howard Pyle’s bold, sweeping style remains popular to this day. Often referred to as "the father of American illustration,” he influenced and nurtured a generation of artists that rose to great acclaim, including such luminaries as N.C. Wyeth. Famed for his pirate paintings, Pyle is widely regarded as responsible for creating modern views on the dress and other iconography of pirates."
McClelland Barclay, Holeproof Hosiery Advertisement, 1925(07 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "McClelland Barclay studied at the Art Students League in New York City. He was responsible for several high-profile advertising campaigns of the Deco era, including General Motors' “Body by Fisher” ads, Holeproof Hosiery, and Texaco. His paintings conveyed his vision of the ideal American girl: pretty, poised, sophisticated, and confident."
Henry J. Soulen, Chan Chi-tan Saw the Flames Jump Up, 1938 (Saturday Evening Post)(08 of11)
Open Image ModalShow Catalog: "Henry Soulen studied first at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and then in Wilmington with Howard Pyle. He became known for his use of bold vibrant color, which editors used to enliven the pages of their magazines. Soulen specialized in industrial and exotic illustrations, setting many of his scenes in the numerous “Chinatowns” that could be found throughout the U.S. At the time, these neighborhoods were seen as strange, foreign places, full of mystery and intrigue."
J.C. Leyendecker, The Florist, 1920 (Kuppenheimer Style Book)(09 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "J.C. Lyendecker is responsible for creating the first 20th century gay icon, the Arrow Collar Man. The Arrow Collar Man had such an enormous cultural impact that in spite of being merely an image, he was swamped with marriage proposals and in the 1920s received more fan mail than even Rudolph Valentino. In this image from a 1920 Kuppenheimer Style Book, Lyendecker subverts the traditional notion of the male bestowing admiration on a woman with this image of a man as a woman’s object of desire."
N.C. Wyeth, The Boy’s King Arthur, 1917(10 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "The graceful sense of fantasy in the works of N.C. Wyeth is a testimony to the influence of his artistic mentor Howard Pyle. A generation of boys grew up appreciating Wyeth's fine sense of historic grandeur in lavish illustrations featured in works of fiction such as The Boys’ King Arthur, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1917. Wyeth was the father of Andrew Wyeth, one of the most famous American fine artists of the mid-20th century."
Norman Rockwell, Dreaming of Adventure, 1924 (Saturday Evening Post)(11 of11)
Open Image ModalAdam Scott Crispo: "Norman Rockwell, most famous for his Saturday Evening Post covers, was highly influenced by the early work of J.C. Lyendecker. In decades past, Rockwell’s work was very widely reproduced on so many products, it came to be regarded as saccharine and banal. More recently, his career has been reconsidered and he is now revered as a great American artist. This painting, which became a Saturday Evening Post cover, combines pathos and humor in its subject matter of a mild-mannered middle-aged drudge dreaming of adventure on the high seas."