New Styles for the New American Figure/Kuppenheimer
Artist
Joseph C. Leyendecker
United States, 1874 - 1951
Date1919
Dimensions13 3/4 x 18 1/2 in. (34.9 x 47 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Peter A. Blatz
Object numberPH.30
DescriptionJoseph Leyendecker’s illustrated poster for the House of Kuppenheimer, a men’s clothing store with branches in New York, Chicago, and Boston, promotes its idea of “the new American figure,” established in a text on another poster he designed for the company the same year: “The men who are coming home breathe the spirit of a new order. They represent a new type of young America, new mentally and physically. The House of Kuppenheimer, alert and responsive to every tendency, has caught this new spirit in a remarkable way. The styles are for the new American figure, upright posture, slender waist and full chest. Fabrics, patterns and tailoring are such as to again justify the reputation of the best tailored young men’s clothes in America.” The image shows the ideal Kuppenheimer customer of the moment—a patrician, slim young man, still wearing his World War I service cap, as he tries on jodhpurs and a fitted jacket, attended in the elegant store by a solicitous assistant and appraised by an older, well-dressed man, perhaps his father. Leyendecker was one of the most important American illustrators of the first half of the 20th century; between 1896 and 1950, he designed more than four 400 magazine covers, 322 of them for The Saturday Evening Post, many of them featuring contemporary fashion. In 1910, he secured commissions from both Kuppenheimer and Arrow Collar to produce hundreds of paintings that would feature in their advertising. He quickly transposed basic images of men in suits into aspirational scenes showing well-to-do men playing college sports, shopping, and enjoying fancy cars and luxury travel. On View
Not on view
