Celebrating 75 Years of the Coca-Cola Santa

Phil Mooney has been in charge of the Archives Department of The Coca-Cola Company since 1977. As the Company's official archivist, he is an expert on all things Coca-Cola.

In his role as chief archivist, Mooney has been interviewed extensively on the subject of Coca-Cola collectibles for local and national publications, radio and television, including three segments on NBC's "Today" show and appearances on The History Channel, Food Network, PBS and CNN. He also has conducted appraisal events on numerous occasions.

Over the past several years, Mooney has curated exhibitions of the original "Coca-Cola Santa Claus" paintings by artist Haddon Sundblom in New York; Chicago; Paris; Stockholm, Sweden; Manila, the Philippines; Oslo, Norway; and Sydney, Australia.

A Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, Mooney has taught a workshop on business archives for the society for more than 20 years and has authored numerous articles on the subject in the United States. He also has been a frequent speaker at meetings focused on archives.

Before joining The Coca-Cola Company, Mooney was the director of the Balch Institute - today a branch of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia - and an archivist for Syracuse University. He graduated from Boston College with a Bachelor of Science degree in history and holds a master's degree in history from Syracuse. Mooney is married and has two children.

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HADDON SUNDBLOM
Famed Advertising Illustrator Created "Coca-Cola Santa" That Evolved into Quintessential Look of Saint Nicholas Around the World

He was known in some circles as "the greatest advertising illustrator of them all," achieving the pinnacle of his profession during the golden age of posters and billboards in America, the 1920s through the 1940s.

Haddon Hubbard Sundblom, known as "Sunny" to his friends, was a legend in the advertising and creative industry. Among his noted commercial works were illustrations for Maxwell House, Colgate-Palmolive, Nabisco, Packard, Buick and Pierce-Arrow, as well as creation of the "Quaker Man" for Quaker Oats.
But the legacy of the Swedish-American Sundblom is most-of-all tied to his luminous creation of the "Coca-Cola Santa" in a long-running series of holiday advertisements for The Coca-Cola Company. Beginning in 1931, Sundblom painted more than 40 original oil artworks of a lovable, jolly ole Saint Nicholas that captivated generations and, over the past 75 years, evolved into the lasting image of Santa worldwide.

Sundblom's renderings of the merry gentleman from the North Pole remain as omnipresent as the character they symbolize - a human being graced with the gift of immortality - and are among the most-recognized and treasured pieces in the annals of print advertising for Coca-Cola, or any product.

Sundblom's understanding of color and his mastery in applying it to canvas were the envy of the other young artists of his day. He was adroit at adding distinctive human touches to his paintings that were wholesomely charming in effect and often also full of romantic appeal.

Sundblom was born in 1899 in Muskegon, Michigan, and moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1912. In 1920, he was hired as an office boy at the Charles Everett Johnson Studios, where he soon decided on a career in illustration. Within five years, Sundblom and two friends launched their own advertising agency. Early clients included not just The Coca-Cola Company, but also Cream of Wheat, Palmolive, Nabisco, Maxwell House, Whitman Chocolates and Goodyear Tires.

From 1924 until he passed away in 1976, Sundblom produced volumes of memorable illustrations for Coca-Cola and was the Company's most-prolific artist, treating subjects that ranged from soda-fountain scenes to bathing beauties. During his peak period in the 1940s, he would produce at least half of all the billboard artwork for Coke.

Sundblom created the "Sprite Boy" - so named because the character resembled a sprite, or elf - used in advertising by Coca-Cola in the 1940s and '50s. (The Company's soft drink Sprite was not introduced until the 1960s.) Another Sundblom creation for Coca-Cola, the "Yes Girl," remains a hallmark in poster design.
But Sundblom remains as inextricably linked to the Coca-Cola Santa and the modern image of Saint Nicholas as Santa is to the Yuletide season itself. The inimitable vision of Santa that Sundblom captured - in part inspired by Clement Clarke Moore's epic poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas") - became a holiday fixture and an important part of the colorful history of The Coca-Cola Company.

Sundblom initially modeled Santa's smiling face after the cheerful, somewhat furrowed looks of a friend, retired salesman Lou Prentiss. "He embodied all the features and spirit of Santa Claus," Sundblom said. "The wrinkles in his face were happy wrinkles."

After Prentiss passed away, Sundblom used his own face as the ongoing reference for painting the enduring, contemporary view of Saint Nicholas. Over time, the Santa drawn both from Sundblom's imagination and from his own looks, as well as those of Prentiss, were adopted by the public as the picture-perfect version of the holiday icon.

Sundblom worked consistently and quickly, with several paintings often completed in one sitting. However, as is typical of creative types, he also had a few problems meeting deadlines. Some agencies resorted to other illustrators to complete or make changes to Sundblom paintings. One of these artists was Gil Elvgren, a huge admirer of Sundblom and eventually a student of his work. Thanks in part to Sundblom's influence, Elvgren in his own right became one of the 20th century's greatest pinup artists.

More background and numerous images of the Coca-Cola Santa by artist Haddon Sundblom can be found in the short history entitled "Coca-Cola and Santa Claus" (PDF).

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