Joseph Christian Leyendecker, famous American illustrator, was known for his poster, book, advertising illustrations and numerous covers for The Saturday Evening Post. Leyendecker painted more than 400 magazine covers, 322 for The Saturday Evening Post alone during the Golden Age of American Illustration. Leyendecker was born in Germany, his family immigrated to Chicago in 1882. J. C. Leyendecker received his formal artistic training at the school of the Chicago Art Institute and later he and his younger brother Frank enrolled in the Académie Julian in Paris for a year, where they were exposed to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, Jules Chéret, and also Alphonse Mucha, a leader in the French Art Nouveau movement.
Leyendecker never married, he was able to indulge in a very luxurious lifestyle and was known for the famous gala-like social gatherings in the 1920s. For much of his adult life Leyendecker lived with another man, Charles Beach who is assumed to have been his lover and who was the original model of the famous Arrow Collar Man.
Leyendecker was a chief influence upon his friend Norman Rockwell, Leyendecker's drawing style was cited as a major influence on the character designs of Team Fortress 2, a first person shooter game for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. (wikipedia)
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