Haddon Sundblom
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The Man Next Door
Compiled byDjF du Marais
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1923 - Haddon Sundblom's original record card fromthe American Academy of Art
Haddon Hubbard Sundblommake a Coca-Cola Santa
Publication unknownIllustrated by Haddon SundblomYear unknown
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addon Sundblom was born in June, 1899 in
Muskegon, Michigan, the youngest of ten children. His
mother died when he was 13 years old.
Young Haddon dropped out of school and began working
to help support the family. "... and I've been working ever
since," he once joked to an interviewer.
Being an 8th Grade drop-out didn't deter Sundblom from
getting a proper education. In the June '56 issue of
American Artist, he tells Frederic Whitaker, "A wise guy
once said, 'All that Sunny knows he learned at his mother's
knee... and other low joints,' which is untrue."
In fact Sundblom went to great lengths to continue
educating himself.
He continuously attended night school "studying something
or other," as he put it, including three years of Architecture
at Austin High and Armour Tech, three years of Commerce
via a correspondence course from the Alexander Hamilton
Institute, four years of night classes at the Chicago Art
Institute and then another three-and-a-half years at the
American Academy of Art.
But perhaps even more important was Sundblom's on-the-
job education. He told Whitaker, In 1920 I got a job with the
Charles Everett Johnson Studio [in Chicago] as an
apprentice. They boasted a galaxy of stars. I ran errands,
washed brushes, etc. for Mac Barclay, Andy Loomis, Will
Foster, Frank Snapp, Harry Timmins, Maurice Logan, Roy
Spreter, Vaughn Flannery and Walter Stocklin, to mention
just a few. One was bound to learn something in that kind
of company!
Illustrated by Haddon Sundblom
H
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Evening by the Fire - 1930
The Country Gentleman - 1928
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Buying Flowers - 1930Baby's First Christmas - 1929Family in Field - 1929
Lucky Strike - 1933
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A couple
Pine Tree, vintage golfadvertising illustration
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1934 - New Years Comic Art
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1947 - Original of a Coke
n a June 1956 article on Haddon Sundblom in American Artist
magazine, author Frederic Whitaker explains what makes
Sundblom's work so universally appealing. Whitaker writes about "...
the sunlight glow that pervades all his work - that lucency which
aroused the expressed envy even of that other giant of illustration,
Norman Rockwell."
"Technically," writes Whitaker, "his paintings are always sunny. They
and their characters and settings breath an air of refinement."
"They are romantic, idealistic, melodious, wholesome, healthy,
pleasing. They look good. His men are men, his women desirable,
his children adorable. He gives the human race cause for self-
respect."
"Never do his compositions ever suggest anything sordid or
depressing, either in color or in subject matter. They have what
people like!"
"One might suggest," Whitaker concludes, "that the advocates of
the mud-and-misery school of painting could learn much from
contemplating the results."
I
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here is a man who created Santa Claus (the "modern"
Santa Claus we all know and love, that is)*. His name was
Haddon Sundblom and you're looking at him, circa the
mid- 1950s.
"Sunny", as he was known by friends, family, clients and
his many, many apprentices, was a prolific, iconic Chicago
illustrator with a "mercurial temperament and occasional
immovability" but also "a heart of gold."
Around 1925, Sundblom painted his first Santa Claus
illustration for Coca-Cola's Christmas advertising
campaign. He claimed to have been partially inspired by
J.C. Leyendecker's work, but over the next 40 years the
image of Santa that became imprinted in the minds of one
and all as the quintessential version of Saint Nicholas was
one hundred percent Sundblom's version.
1947 - Snowman, ad illustration
T
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‘Coca-Cola’ has always had a strong artistic heritage
having been famously interpreted by artists such as
Haddon Sundblom, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol
who have all reflected the social and cultural attitudes of
the time," says the preamble on the campaign's profile
page.
It's interesting to see how Sundblom's Santa, originally
created in oil paints nearly a hundred years ago, lives on in
the digital age - "remixed" by 21st century graphic artists -
to great effect.
You can read the story of Haddon Sundblom's Coca-Cola Santa in
greater detail at : http://coca-cola-art.com/
and in french, here :
http://www.issuu.com/djf_dumarais/docs/haddon_sundblom_noel
Coca-Cola Art Christmas Santa
Haddon Sundblom
Coca
Santa
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o doubt, with so many steady advertising accounts - Coke, Palmolive Soap, Colgate Toothpaste, Maxwell House Coffee,
Aunt Jemima Pancakes, just to name a few - Sunny had his hands full all of the time with tremendously lucrative work. Fans of
the genre, like myself, would certainly love it if there were more Haddon Sundblom pin-up pieces like this
N
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You're looking at Haddon Sundblom's last Santa (or should
I say... 'Santa's little helper'...?) In fact, this was Sunny's
last commercial assignment, painted when he was 71
years old, for the cover of that other Chicago institution,
Playboy magazine.
You'd think that Playboy and Haddon Sundblom would
have had a long, ongoing working relationship, but I
checked with Aaron Baker, the curator of paintings for
Playboy Enterprises Inc. Aaron wrote back, "Our art
director, Art Paul, wanted a sexy take on Sundblom's
classic Coca-Cola Santa Claus illustration. To my
knowledge, he did not do any other work for us."
Sundblom seems like a natural for the pin-up genre. In the
book, "The Great American Pin-Up", co-author Charles
Martignette wrote about how, during and after WWII, many
American companies employed pin-ups in their ad
campaigns.
Santa and Coca Cola
"Coca-Cola was the largest of such companies to feature
pin-ups prominently," wrote Martignette. And of course
Haddon Sundblom was one of Coke's most prolific
illustrators. Between Sunny and his many talented
apprentices, Coca-Cola had a ready stable of some of the
finest illustrators of the genre at their disposal.
Naughty Santa, Playboy cover, December 1972
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National Geographic-1939
The Saturday Evening Post – December 1957
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Santa and the New Refrigerator
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White Cross Nurse
Haddon Sundblom Commercial
Art
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Sundblom illustration for a beer company
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Sundblom illustration for a beer company
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Tenderness mother and child
Natural loveliness
long with his night school art lessons and his early
days as a commercial art studio apprentice, the young
Haddon Sundblom had some other extremely important
influences that informed his painting technique.
Among others, Howard Pyle, John Singer Sargent, Robert
Henri, Anders Zorn and Joaquin Sorolla were all
practitioners of a kind of painting adapted from the
Impressionists called "alla prima" or "first stroke," The
technique involved "laying down the fewest strokes in the
quickest time to sufficiently describe moving targets," as
Roger T. Reed explains in a fascinating, informative article
on Sundblom at the Illustration House website.
Sundblom acknowedged Zorn as his principle influence but
in his June '56 article in American Artist, author Frederic
Whitaker writes, "There never could have been such a
Sundblom had there never been a Howard Pyle, for the
Pyle concept is easily seen in the Whitaker further credits
Sorolla for "[unlocking] for Sunny the secret of the sun-lit
glow that pervades all his work."
Other painter/illustrators who Sundblom acknowledged as
being an influence on his style include J.C. Leyendecker,
Pruett Carter and Walter Biggs.
Never say die
A
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A man - Vanity - 1943
n 1925 Haddon Sundblom's apprenticeship
ended when he left the Charles Everett
Johnson Studio to form Stevens, Sundblom
and Henry with new business partners Howard
Stevens and Edwin Henry. Coca-Cola became
on of the new studio's first clients - and, in
tandem with his early work on that account,
Haddon Sundblom became an "important
illustrator.
Speaking about the early days of the studio,
Sundblom said, "Ed Henry was one of the first
to leave for New York in the great exodus of
the twenties. Steve and I continued to operate
here in Chicago. The Depression hit us like a
ton of bricks, but there never was a
depression in the genius department.
Naturally, I'm prejudiced, but a lot of people
thought it was the best outfit from New York to
the Pacific Coast
From the very beginning our studio had a
special fascination for screwballs (the high-IQ
type, of course) from all over the country. We
had some sane people too, however, but we
found out in the stormy struggle to succeed it
helped to be a little nuts.
We had in our gang authorities on every subject under the sun and,
being extroverts, they were always ready and eager to prove it. Our
studio was a 'Bughouse square' version of Benjamin Franklin's
'Junto.' We learned a little about the fine arts and quite a bit about all
the other arts.
To expound on anything to that bunch of sharpies one had to know
his subject or else. The 'technique of thinking' (low animal cunning)
became synonymous with survival.
"The best outfit from New York to the Pacific Coast."
I
Haddon Sundblom
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n the book, The Great American Pin-Up, co-authors Charles Martignette and Louis Meisel credit Haddon Sundblom with
being "recognized today as the inspiration behind the best pin-up and glamor artists from the 1930s through the 1960s."
Certainly Sundblom's Circle of apprentices are responsible for some of the most gorgeous interpretations of the female
form. Below, a couple of the most famous pin-up artists of that group: Gil Elvgren and Joyce Ballantyne.
As you can see from this ad below, taken from the 1946 New York Art Directors Annual, Elvgren, Ballantyne and several
other Sundblom Circle artists were represented by Stevens Gross Studios.
This is where things get a bit confusing
for me. The 1956 American Artist article
on Haddon Sundblom describes Earl
Gross as a "direct offspring of the
Sundblom personality" - and Sundblom
himself tells interviewer Frederic
Whitaker that, "In 1925 Howard
Stevens, Edwin Henry and I started our
own outfit known as Stevens,
Sundblom & Henry." So how and when
did Stevens Gross come about? In
another book, "The Elvgren Collection,"
author Marianne Ohl Phillips writes that
Gil Elvgren joined Stevens Gross at
age 22 and subsequently became a
protegé of Haddon Sundblom,
suggesting that Sunny was among the
artists in Stevens Gross' stable. Very
confusing...
Another Sundblom Circle artist, Chuck
Showalter, joined Sundblom's studio in
1946 when it was known as "Sundblom
and Anderson."
and the Chicago Pin-Up Artists
Within 8 months of his joining the studio changed to "Sundblom, Johnston and White." Showalter reported that Sunny left
the studio in 1956 to partner with a former apprentice, Harry Ekman (below).
Here are a few more lovely ladies by some of the seemingly countless Sundblom Circle alumni: Al Moore,
Euclid Shook,Freeman Elliot, Ward Brackett, Al Buel, Coby Whitmore, who by the mid-1940s had migrated to New York
and became a star at the Charles E. Cooper studio.
I
Haddon Sundblom
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Haddon Sundblom : Original pin up illustration for the Shaw-Barton Calendar Company, Coshocton, Ohio, circa 1950s
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Al More- Miss January, Ballyhoo Calendar illustration, 1953
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Freeman Elliott - Pin-Up with Sun Hat
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Gil Elvgren – Tail Wind
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Al Buel - Ready to Take Off
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Joyce Ballantyne - Spilled Ink
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Ward Brackett
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Publication unknown
and Pin-UpHaddon Sundblom
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Publication unknown
and Pin-UpHaddon Sundblom
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Coca Cola Advertisement Illustration
and Coca-Cola GirlsHaddon Sundblom
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Coca-Cola ad illustration, c. 1940
and Coca-Cola GirlsHaddon Sundblom
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Coca Cola Advertisement Illustration - Saturday Evening Post
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Portrait of a Society Lady
Illustration
Magazine
Haddon Sundblom
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Cashmere Bouquet Soap ad illustration, c. 1949
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Cashmere Bouquet Soap ad illustration, c. 1949
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Cashmere Bouquet Soap ad illustration, c. 1949
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Cashmere Bouquet Soap ad illustration, c. 1949
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Portrait of a Brunette
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