VML GRUNT "Recruiting" Poster Thought Process
Right from the start when the theme of “Uniforms” was thrown about for Vancouver Men in Leather’s first GRUNT night of 2025, the idea of a military recruiting poster leapt to mind. For one“subverting” the “real man” ethos of these posters for the purpose of a queer kink event had a lot of appeal. Second, 2025 is lining up to be a hard year for those outside “conservative norms” both in North America and globally, so a call to arms felt right. The problem is military and police come with more social and institutional baggage than I wanted to cope with. To that end I aimed for a really broad of uniforms that pulls from history to give the piece a fantastic over tone, and a dash of humour.
When researching I toyed with Soviet propaganda posters, but frankly if you’re concerned about visual baggage that’s a no go - Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukrain leaves enough said. So I started rolling referencing war art from J. C. Leyendecker and sketching out some thumbnails. Leyendecker was an advertising illustrator from mid-1890s until this death in 1951. In my mind, Leyendecker is not just remarkable for his crisp, clean, work that always had an underlying story, but also that he was as “out” as the times allowed for. His partner modelled for a majority of his work, and was the “Arrow shirt guy” - a fully qualified snack.
One of the early concepts riffing on Leyendecker’s work.
Researching Leyendecker reference material, saw me stumble across his contemporary McClelland Barclay (1891–1943). If you are thinking iconic homo-erotic Navy recruitment posters, well these are the ones; muscular physiques, large hands, strong chins, and men almost always in action. There’s not a lot of biographical information available on Barclay, but the seems to be the anti-Leyendecker other than art that seeds late-night barracks fantasies.
Where Leyendecker has a partner and a estate outside of New York, and his art men always seem to bee having a conversation subtextual to the women present, Barclay lacked that subtlety. Barclay’s work definitely idealized the men he drew, he also drew women in as an idealized fashion, so from his work, it’s hard to tell where he landed sexually. Though despite being married, casual reading between the biographical lines indicates the label “womanizer” might be applicable. Regardless, Barclay’s work was a great jumping off point for a “uniforms” recruitment poster.
Barclay’s strong poses only needed minor tweaks to make them more sexually overt, so I redrew them mostly reworking the context. I applied my more comic-book inspired style, rather than Barclay’s more painterly approach, and frankly it was a treat to do. Barclay’s command of figure is something most comic book artists today rarely achieve. I’m happy to call our “Recruiting Poster” a master study, or standing on the shoulder’s of giants, and it was a delightfully to subvert (or pervert) the idea.