Existing comment:
Norman Rockwell
The mansion on Mount Tom Road, 1960
Chapter heading for My Adventures as an Illustrator
This unusual calligraphy, though it looks like a symbol, is the monograph created by Joseph Christian Leyendecker to sign his illustrations-a "J," a "C" and an "L," artfully combined. When Rockwell began working for the Saturday Evening Post, Leyendecker was its premier illustrator. His status eclipsed all of the other Post illustrators giving Leyendecker his choice of the most favored issues, Christmas, New Years and Easter. Rockwell didn't see himself in competition with Leyendecker; he saw him as his hero. After an introduction to Leyendecker at a New Rochelle Art Association fund-raising banquet, Rockwell "sneaked through the back streets (so as not to meet any of my friends) to Mr. Leyendecker's mansion on Mount Tom Road. It sat on a hill at the extreme western end of a large plot of ground surrounded on all sides by a high wall. To the rear of the house, which resembled a French chateau, stretched formal gardens." Rockwell didn't find the courage that evening to invite Leyendecker to dinner as he'd hoped, but the next morning "after picking up the telephone a hundred times, I steeled myself and called Mr. Leyendecker." Rockwell recalled the evening in minute detail-down to the clothes Leyendecker and his brother Frank wore and their dinner conversation. The initial formality of the evening ended when the hired cook slipped on an edge of carpet and dropped the platter holding the turkey, which sent the turkey rolling under the dining room table. Meeting under the table to salvage the dinner, Leyendecker said to Rockwell, "That smells good," and stuck his finger into the stuffing for a taste. "Chestnut," Rockwell said, "How is it?" "Wonderful," said Leyendecker and ate some more. Then he added, "Do you know I have a Filipino cook and he can't cook turkey. Refuses to, in fact. Says if I want American food, I can hire an American cook. This is a real treat." "When that turkey bounced under the table," Rockwell wrote, "we all became friends. We remained friends for over twenty-five years." |