Robert Riger (June 4, 1924 – May 19, 1995) was an American sports illustrator, photographer, award-winning television director, and cinematographer.

John Szarkowski Thaddeus John Szarkowski (December 18, 1925 – July 7, 2007) was an American photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Early life and ca ...

, former director of the photography department at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, said, "His photographs are documents, and the best of them are also pictures that now have a life of their own, and that would have given intense pleasure to

George Stubbs George Stubbs (25 August 1724 – 10 July 1806) was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Reynolds or Gainsborough ...

and

Winslow Homer Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...

and

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

David Halberstam David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and later ...

, said "Robert Riger was the preeminent artist of a golden age of American sports in the years after World War II."

Early life

Born in 1924 in Manhattan, Riger attended

The High School of Music & Art The High School of Music & Art, informally known as "Music & Art" (or "M&A"), was a public specialized high school located at 443-465 West 135th Street in the borough of Manhattan, New York, from 1936 until 1984. In 1961, Music & Art and the High ...

, and the

United States Merchant Marine Academy The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA or Kings Point) is a United States service academy in Kings Point, New York. It trains its midshipmen (as students at the academy are called) to serve as officers in the United States Merchant ...

, and later earned a BA from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

in Brooklyn. After serving three years in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Riger made his first sports drawing in 1945: a scene from an Army-Notre Dame football game. From 1947 to 1949 Riger did magazine layout for ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' and ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...

'', then worked as an advertising art director until 1955, when he became a freelance illustrator. He was a regular contributor to ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' since its first month of publication in 1954. During his career, the magazine published more than 1,200 of hi
editorial drawings
and over 200 of his promotional and advertising drawings.

Photography

In 1950, he began taking photographs as a research tool for his drawings. What started as a secondary medium became what Riger was most known for. He described his approach to sports journalism:

You cannot possibly photograph sport unless you understand it completely, and understand and know the men who play it. The same intensity they have to play the game you must have to record it. Not stop it, but suspend it forever in time.

From 1950 to 1994, he copyrighted more than 90,000 master photographic negatives, more than 40,000 of them involving pro football. Many of these photographs appeared in

, and Riger published two ground-breaking books of sports photo-journalism: The Pros: A Documentary of Professional Football in America, Simon & Schuster, 1960 and The American Diamond, Simon & Schuster, 1965. In addition to football and baseball, Riger's images cover boxing, horse racing, and all things Olympic. (see Getty Image

His subjects were celebrated athletes of the day:

Ted Williams Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1939 ...

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line ...

Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest go ...

Willie Mays Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid" and "Buck", is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Regarded as one of the greatest players ever, Mays ranks second behind only Babe Ruth on most all-tim ...

Johnny Unitas John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 ...

Frank Gifford Francis Newton Gifford (August 16, 1930 – August 9, 2015) was an American football player, actor, and television sports commentator. After a 12-year playing career as a halfback and flanker for the New York Giants of the National Foo ...

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...

Jim Clark James Clark Jr. OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapol ...

Eddie Arcaro George Edward Arcaro (February 19, 1916 – November 14, 1997), was an American Thoroughbred horse racing Hall of Fame jockey who won more American classic races than any other jockey in history and is the only rider to have won the U.S. Tripl ...

Nadia Comăneci Nadia Elena Comăneci Conner (born November 12, 1961) is a Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. In 1976, at the age of 14, Comăneci was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10. ...

Wilma Rudolph Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994) was an American sprinter, who became a world-record-holding Olympic champion and international sports icon in track and field following her successes in the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. ...

Pelé Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; born 23 October 1940), known as Pelé (), is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled "the greatest" by FIFA, ...

and those who coached them

Vince Lombardi Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized a ...

, Willie Schaeffler among others.

Television & Film

Riger's television career began with Monday morning football analysis on

Today (NBC Program) ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

on NBC in 1961. In 1963, he began three years of world travel and weekly appearances on ABC's Wide World of Sports (U.S. TV series)," doing the incisive on-camera picture reporting that preceded the days of color and gave ABC Sports an added dimension to their coverage. At ABC, where he worked from 1963 to 1970 and again from 1977 to 1980, he won nine Emmy awards. He developed his ground breaking slow-motion video work on the broadcasts of the 1968, 1976 and 1984

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

and the 1980

Winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were he ...

. As Second Unit Director, Riger was responsible for the acclaimed soccer sequences in the movie

Escape to Victory ''Escape to Victory'' (stylized as ''Victory'') is a 1981 American-British-Italian sports war film directed by John Huston and starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow and Pelé. The film is about Allied prisoners of wa ...

(1981), directed by

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

, which deals with Allied prisoners of war facing German soccer stars during World War II and starring

Sylvester Stallone Sylvester Enzio Stallone (; born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, ) is an American actor and filmmaker. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, h ...

Books & Exhibitions

Riger was also the author and illustrator of over 13 books, many of the early ones for juvenile audiences. In 1963, author Ralph Moody wrote Come On

Seabiscuit Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse ...

(), which was illustrated by Robert Riger and recently brought back into print by the University of Nebraska Press. It served as an inspiration for Laura Hillenbrand. On the radio show Fresh Air with Terry Gross on July 29, 2003, Hillenbrand said of Moody's book:

When I was about seven years old. . . . I found a children's book called Come on Seabiscuit! which was just wonderful! I read it so many times I broke the spine and all the pages fell out. I still have it; it has to be wrapped in rubber bands because the pages will go everywhere. But that book in just vivid prose told the story of the horse.

A month before he died in 1995, Riger completed his last book, The Sports Photography of Robert Riger (

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

), and finished preparation for a definitive exhibit of his photography at the James Danziger Gallery in New York City. In April, Riger taped an appearance on ''
Charlie Rose
discussing his entire career.

Family

Riger was the son of Harry St. John Cooke and Irene Teresa Riger of New York city. He first married

Eleanor Sanger Eleanor Sanger (September 15, 1929 – March 7, 1993) was a 7-time Emmy-award-winning television writer and producer, who was the first woman Network Sports Producer. "Women television producers are still as rare as Howard Cosell's silences, ...

(the first U.S. woman television sports producer)Eleanor Sanger Obit., New York Times, March 8, 1993
/ref> in 1950 and had four children by their marriage, Christopher Riger, (1951- ), Victoria Riger Phillips, (1952- ), Robert Paris Rige

and Charlotte Irene Riger, (1963- ). His second marriage was to the writer Dawn Aberg; their children are Ariel Aberg-Riger (1981- ) and John Maxwell Aberg-Riger (1983- ).

References

* The Sports Photography of Robert Riger, Random House, 1995 * Midships, 1945, U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps, Training Organization, War Shipping Administration. p. 58. * Victory on

Hollywood.com Hollywood.com is an entertainment news website covering popular culture topics including movies, television, music and celebrities. Hollywood.com is principally owned by Mitchell Rubenstein and Laurie S. Silvers, who previously founded Sci-Fi Ch ...

, https://archive.today/20130125113636/http://www.hollywood.com/movie/Victory/178757

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Riger, Robert American illustrators American cinematographers American male journalists American photojournalists 1995 deaths 1924 births The High School of Music & Art alumni Pratt Institute alumni