For more than forty years J. C. Leyendecker created the prototype of American elegance and style. Leyendecker's "Arrow Collar Man" became the masculine counterpart of the "Gibson Girl," embodying the fantasies of millions. His advertising art, book illustrations, and hundreds of covers for The Saturday Evening Post and other magazines enabled America to visualize itself and influenced the tastes and attitudes of two generations.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker was born at Montabaur in western Germany on 23 March 1874. His brother and close companion for most of his life, Frank Xavier, was born three years later. In 1882 the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Chicago, where a daughter, Augusta, was born.

Leyendecker was already demonstrating artistic talent. In a rare interview in The Saturday Evening Post (15 October 1938) he describes his early work, with typical self-deprecation, as "pretentious paintings which, for want of canvas, were done on oilcloth of the...