Haddon Sundblom
Encyclopedia
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
best known for the images of Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
he created for The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
.
Background
Sundblom was born in Muskegon, MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
to a Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
-speaking family. His father, Karl Wilhelm Sundblom, came from the farm Norrgårds in the village of Sonboda in Föglö
Föglö
Föglö is an island municipality of Åland, an autonomous territory of Finland.The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
of the Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, then part of the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland
Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed 1809–1917 as part of the Russian Empire and was ruled by the Russian czar as Grand Prince.- History :...
now Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, and his mother Karin Andersson was from Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. Sundblom studied at the American Academy of Art
American Academy of Art
The American Academy of Art is a professional, accredited fine arts school located in downtown Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1923 for the education of both fine and commercial arts students. The school has a tradition of top art education with exceptional students being awarded the academy's...
.
Career
Sundblom is best remembered for his advertising work, specifically the Santa ClausSanta Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
advertisements he painted for The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
in the 1930s. Sundblom's Claus firmly established the larger-than-life, grandfatherly Claus as a key figure in Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
imagery. So popular were Sundblom's images of Claus (Sundblom's images are used by Coca-Cola to this day) that the urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
soon arose that Sundblom had actually created the modern image of Santa Claus.
According to the Coca Cola company: "For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Moore's description of St. Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human. For the next 33 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa -- an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages, all over the world."
Sundblom also conceived Coke's mascot Sprite Boy who appeared in print ads during the 1940s and 1950s.
Sundblom is recognized as a major influence on many well known pin-up artists, such as Gil Elvgren
Gil Elvgren
Gil Elvgren , born Gillette Elvgren, was an American painter of pin-up girls, advertising and illustration. Elvgren was one of the more important pin-up and glamour artists of the twentieth century. Today he is best known for his pin-up paintings for Brown & Bigelow...
, Edward Runci, Joyce Ballantyne
Joyce Ballantyne
Joyce Ballantyne was a painter of pin-up art. She is best known as the designer of the Coppertone girl, whose swimming costume is being pulled down by a dog.-Early life and career:...
, Art Frahm
Art Frahm
Art Frahm was an American painter of campy pin-up girls and advertising. Frahm lived in Chicago, and was active from the 1940s to 1960s. Today he is best known for his “ladies in distress” pictures involving beautiful young women whose panties mysteriously flutter to the ground in public...
, and Harry Ekman
Harry Ekman
Harry Ekman was a significant American graphic artist. His early influences were Gil Elvgren, Haddon Sundblom, Joyce Ballantine. Ekman initially apprenticed with Sundblom who was a close family friend and by 1951 for Elvgren...
. In the mid-1930s, he began to paint pin-ups and glamour
Glamour Girl
Glamour Girl is a 1938 British comedy film directed by Arthur B. Woods and starring Gene Gerrard, Lesley Brook, Ross Landon, Betty Lynne and Leslie Weston. A commercial photographer leaves his job to become a painter, using his secretary as a model....
pieces for calendars. Sundblom's last assignment, in 1972, was a cover painting for Playboy's
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
Christmas issue.
"Sundblom gets pigeonholed as the painter of Coca-Cola Santa Clauses, but this trivializes his central place in 20th century advertising art. More than any artist including Norman Rockwell, Sundblom defined the American Dream in pictures, proved by his work for virtually the entire Fortune 500. [Among his still-living legacy is the Quaker Oats man, posed by his assistant Harold W. McCauley.]"