haddon sundblom

The Man Next Door

Compiled byDjF du Marais

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

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

Evening by the Fire - 1930

The Country Gentleman - 1928

Buying Flowers - 1930Baby's First Christmas - 1929Family in Field - 1929

Lucky Strike - 1933

A couple

Pine Tree, vintage golfadvertising illustration

1934 - New Years Comic Art

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

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

‘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

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

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

National Geographic-1939

The Saturday Evening Post – December 1957

Santa and the New Refrigerator

White Cross Nurse

Haddon Sundblom Commercial

Art

Sundblom illustration for a beer company

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

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

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

Haddon Sundblom : Original pin up illustration for the Shaw-Barton Calendar Company, Coshocton, Ohio, circa 1950s

Al More- Miss January, Ballyhoo Calendar illustration, 1953

Freeman Elliott - Pin-Up with Sun Hat

Gil Elvgren – Tail Wind

Al Buel - Ready to Take Off

Joyce Ballantyne - Spilled Ink

Ward Brackett

Publication unknown

and Pin-UpHaddon Sundblom

Coca Cola Advertisement Illustration

and Coca-Cola GirlsHaddon Sundblom

Coca-Cola ad illustration, c. 1940

and Coca-Cola GirlsHaddon Sundblom

Coca Cola Advertisement Illustration - Saturday Evening Post

Portrait of a Society Lady

Illustration

Magazine

Haddon Sundblom

Cashmere Bouquet Soap ad illustration, c. 1949

Portrait of a Brunette

haddon sundblom

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