Pg3c1910PurdueVsNorthwesternBBPost

CPAGE 3H

SPORTS ANTIQUE

OF THE WEEK

Feb. 28th- March 6th 2010

Standout items

by SportsAntiques.com

THIS WEEKS FEATURE

PURDUE

VS.

NORTHWESTERN

c1910 Baseball Broadside

GAME POSTER

Illustrated by

Joseph Leyendecker

21 1/2" tall x 14"

wide, printed on cardstock

Only known example of a

Leyendecker baseball game poster

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By Carlton Hendricks

While preparing this feature I stumbled on an on-line reference that got my full attention.

http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/8aa/8aa8.htm
The Saturday Evening Post, Baseball Catcher
May 15, 1909
oil on canvas

Unlike Rockwell, Parrish and other illustrators who employed photography to help them create their images, Leyendecker preferred to paint from life. The photograph shows Leyendecker in his New York studio sketching a model dressed and posed as a catcher.

Which led me to the website of the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville Alabama where a Leyendecker exhibition had been hosted February 24 - April 20, 2008. Which in turn led me to the exhibition's producer The Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA. I emailed them and bingo! I got the photo below...can you believe it!

Photo courtesy The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA www.hagginmuseum.org

read what Leyendecker said during this session

Finding the actual photo of Leyendecker illustrating our catcher is no doubt the end all. I'm almost speechless! After I got the photo though, my curiosity was piqued ...who what where...Who in Stockton California has a photo of J.C. Leyendecker in his studio illustrating my catcher? Actually I think I vaguely recall having a discussion once with someone at an antiques show, about a museum in Stockton, and the person telling me about it having a remarkable collection of...I think it might have been Leyendecker...anyway...After the Haggin Museum graciously sent the photo, I emailed them back to enquire more about their Leyendecker collection....get this, their website says..."The Haggin Museum's collection of original works by Leyendecker represents the largest held by any museum"...can you imagine? Boy the east coast Illustration collectors must be mad about that!...Stockton California isn't exactly Hyde Park New York. Although actually Stockton California will forever be a part of the Carlton Hendricks evolution,...genesis really of collecting...For it was there in Stockton California that I drove my old 65' Olds Cutlass to the home of Paul Stagg, sat at his kitchen table with him...and ended up buying his father Amos Alonzo Stagg's personal football player bookends....in 1988 I believe it was....but that's a story for another time.

http://www.hagginmuseum.org/exhibitions

/leyendecker/

The Haggin Museum's collection of original works by Leyendecker represents the largest held by any museum and was assembled in the 1950s by former director Earl Rowland (1890-1963). An admirer of the artists of the "Golden Age of American Illustration," Rowland contacted some of the companies Leyendecker had worked for to solicit donations. He also contacted individuals, such as the artist's sister, Augusta Leyendecker, who had inherited a number of his original canvases. His respect for the man led him to secure a headstone for the artist's unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York.