Sidney Harry Riesenberg was born December 12, 1885 in Chicago, IL. His father, Wilhelm Henrich Riesenberg, had immigrated from Germany in 1880, and worked for The Chicago Daily News. His mother, Emily Schorb, was from Wisconsin and also wrote a cooking column for several Chicago newspapers. They raised two sons and two daugthers. The older son, Felix Riesenberg, became a world famous explorer, sea captain and author of sea stories. He was the navigator of the airship America in the first attempt to reach the North Pole by dirigible in 1907.
Sidney studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. His family moved to Yonkers New York in 1905. Sidney worked at the Hudson River Museum of Art in Yonkers. He taught art classes at the Westchester Arts Association, where he met the artist John Newton Howitt, who lived in nearby White Plains, NY.
In 1912, Riesenberg's first illustrations were published in People's Home Journal and he was soon doing interiors for The Saturday Evening Post, as well as covers for Harper's Weekly and Boy's Life. In 1914 he did a cover for The Popular Magazine.
During WWI he designed posters for the Marine Corps and the Liberty Loan campaign.
Sidney Riesenberg painted pulp covers for Sea Stories, High Seas Adventures, Pirate Stories, Submarine Stories, War Birds, Sky Riders, War Novels, Action Stories, Danger Trail, All Adventure, Short Stories, Complete Detective, West, Western Romances, Complete Western Book, Western Novels & Short Stories, Western Story, and Frontier Stories.
He never married. He lived with his older sister Elsa. After their younger sister, Edith Atheling, died of Leukemia in 1944, they raised her daughter, Anne Atheling.
After WWII the Riesenbergs moved to 25 Amherst Drive, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, where the artist pursued his enthusiasm for painting landscapes. He also painted a few commissioned portraits. He was an art instructor at the Westchester Workshop in White Plains, NY.
In his retirement years he and his sister moved in with their neice's family on a farm in Cambridge, MA. Sidney Riesenberg died at age 86 on October 1, 1971.
© David Saunders 2009 |
