Reisman, Philip, 1904-1992

Painter, illustrator, etcher, teacher; New York, N.Y.

Born in Warsaw, Poland.

From the description of Philip Reisman papers, 1904-1994. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122370499

Philip Reisman was born July 18, 1904 in Warsaw, Poland. In 1908 his mother emigrated to the United States with Philip and three siblings, joining his father and two older brothers already in New York City. Despite his father's discouragement, Reisman studied for six years at the Art Students League of New York under Wallace Morgan, George Bridgeman, George Luks and Frank Du Mond. He also studied privately with Harry Wickes from 1927-1928. Throughout his career Reisman turned his artist's eye on the city, painting and sketching busy scenes of the working-class people he saw around him on New York's Lower East Side; in recognition of this, the Museum of the City of New York honored him with a one-man retrospective in 1979.

During the Depression Reisman worked as a WPA mural artist at Bellevue Hospital, and he shared a studio in Sheridan Square for a time with fellow artist Harry Sternberg (who was also a fencing partner). In 1944 he spent a summer in Massachusetts where he became fascinated with the Gloucester fishing industry, spending hours sketching scenes at a local mackerel processing plant. Reisman saw "a connection between the lives of men engaged in the struggle to make a living from the sea and those of city dwellers trying to survive in an often hostile environment." [William H. Truettner and Roger B. Stein, "Philip Reisman: Biography," Smithsonian Museum of Art website]

Reisman was a board member of the American Artists School, a member of the American Artists Congress, An American Group and the Artists League of America. His work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Museum of Modern Art, National Print Exhibition and the National Academy of Design, and is in the permanent collections of galleries and museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the City of New York and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. He died in 1992.

From the guide to the Philip Reisman Papers, 1932-1993, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)