Featured Artist — Leyendecker, J.C. and F.X.

Everyone has heard of Joseph Christian (JC) Leyendecker, and rightfully so. He was a brilliant artist, and besides maybe Norman Rockwell and NC Wyeth is the best known of the golden age illustrators. Less people know that his brother, Frank Xavier (FX) was an artist of almost equally prodigious talent. In fact, after the brothers immigrated to the US from Germany in the late 1800s, Frank had the greater initial success. The brothers studied art, and then lived and worked together in the early 1900s. Both were notoriously gay, which of course was unacceptable at the time, and ultimately caused friction when JC’s long-time significant other (and model), Charles Beach, had conflict with Frank. Whether it was these problems or other issues that caused Frank’s downfall is unclear. What is clear, however, is that Frank moved into Norman Rockwell’s garage in 1924, and died of a heroin overdose soon thereafter. Whether it was an accident or suicide is unknown. The Leyendecker brothers’ art speaks for itself - iconic, immediately recognizable, and most importantly, beautiful. It’s basically impossible to find affordable finished JC art these days, but luckily he did a lot of prelims that still come to the market. FX is more approachable, but he died young and his art rarely comes up for sale. I’m just happy that I own a handful of pieces that I know were touched by the masters.