World War I Navy Poster Studies (1917) - J.C. Leyendecker Art Print

Leyendecker worked out his Navy recruitment poster in fragments: a flag caught mid-drape, a sailor's stance repeated twice like they were standing in line together, gold rank insignia scattered like afterthoughts across raw canvas-toned ground.

Painted in 1917 as America entered the First World War, these preliminary studies reveal the machinery behind his finished propaganda work, each element isolated for study before final assembly into a single recruiting image. The American flag's red and navy folds dissolve into quick, unblended strokes, star fields softened rather than crisply outlined, painterly shorthand meant only for the artist's own reference.

Below, the sailor's white uniform holds two versions of the same pose, black neckerchief knotted tight at the collarbone, bayonet-fitted rifle angled against his hip in the posture Navy recruiters wanted plastered on city walls nationwide.

Leyendecker's wartime illustration work turned enlistment into visual seduction, clean-jawed young men rendered as national ideal. Here, unfinished and searching, the sailor exists twice over, neither pose yet chosen, the war not yet packaged for public consumption.