Robert Riger

Robert Riger (June 4, 1924 – May 19, 1995) was an American sports illustrator, photographer, award-winning television director, and cinematographer. John Szarkowski, former director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, 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 and Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins."

Early life Born in 1924 in Manhattan, Riger attended The High School of Music & Art, and the United States Merchant Marine Academy, and later earned a BA from Pratt Institute 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 and The Saturday Evening Post, then worked as an advertising art director until 1955, when he became a freelance illustrator. He was a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated since its first month of publication in 1954. During his career, the magazine published more than 1,200 of his editorial drawings and over 200 of his promotional and advertising drawings.

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 , 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), 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 (the first U.S. woman television sports producer) in 1950 and had four children by their marriage, Christopher Riger, (1951- ), Victoria Riger Phillips, (1952- ), Robert Paris Riger (1960-2018), 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- ).