While most are more familiar with the works of his Saturday Evening Post counterpart, Norman Rockwell, Joseph Christian Leyendecker has always been the giant of the period to me.
Rockwell's "style" is much more popular and recognizable, but Leyendecker has the more important imagery, and perhaps more familiar.
His reliance on cherubic baby figures to ring in the New Year, as opposed to showing the old human figure limping out, helped fix the national artistic discourse on looking to each new year with optimism.
Baby New Year 1910 is a great example: At once capturing the magic, imagination, recklessness and optimism of the coming Aviation Age in it's infancy.
I was heartened to see the December 2009 Sotheby's Leyendecker auction beat the pre-sale estimate by 600%, and brought 5 new records for this under-appreciated genius.
One other thing I found fascinating about Leyendecker is his penchant for turning advertising work into collectible artwork (at the time). This scene from a campaign for Arrow dress shirts is one of the earliest forms of aspirational advertising, as who would not want to live the Arrow life after seeing these two gents.
More Leyendecker examples:
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