William Siegel

William Siegel (1905–1990; born Wilhelm Tsiegelnitsky, later William Sanderson) was an American painter and illustrator. Early in his career, he worked as a contributing editor publishing illustrations in New Masses magazine. During the Great Depression he developed a successful career illustrating children's books, including Marion Hurd McNeely's Newbery Honor Book The Jumping-Off Place. He also worked in magazine illustration and advertising, before being drafted into the U.S. Army in World War II. He served at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, before being sent to Germany. After the war he became an assistant professor of Advertising Design at the University of Denver, teaching there from 1946 until his retirement in 1972. He was considered "one of the mainstays, one of the people who helped build the School of Art" and is an important modernist artist in Colorado.

Background Wilhelm Tsiegelnitsky was born in 1905 to Grigori Mojesevich Tsiegelnitsky, a construction engineer, and his wife Berta in a village near Riga, Russian Empire. His parents were of Russian-Jewish and German-Jewish background but the family was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church for economic reasons. In 1917, during the Bolshevik Revolution they lived with relatives in Rostov-on-the-Don. While there, William took classes at Chinyenov Art School.

In 1921, the family left Rostov and emigrated to the United States, traveling on short-term visas via Kiev, Italy and Greece. They were sponsored by relatives in New Jersey, and arrived in the US in 1923. Their names were anglicized to Gregory, Bertha, and William Siegel.

As early as 1926, Siegel published work in the New Masses magazine as a "contributing editor". He was active with New Masses until 1936, when he chose to leave, disliking the direction the magazine was moving in politically. He also exhibited at the John Reed Club's ACA Galleries in New York City. In 1936, he joined others in calling for an American Artists' Congress. In 1937 Siegel held a solo show at the ACA (American Contemporary Art) Galleries in New York. "Negro Workers" (July 1930)

New Masses illustrations: "Going Up" (October 1926) "Nine Years" (November 1926) "Wanhsien Massacre" (November 1926) "He Wants More Than Pie in the Sky" (December 1926) "Another Triumph of Free Speech" (January 1927) "China Awakens" (January 1927) "Crusaders Ordered South" (February 1927) "The White Peril" (March 1927) "Decoration" (March 1927) "Faster, Headsman, Faster!" (April 1927) "The Miners – Who Will Lead Them?" (June 1927) "Fifth Avenue Bus" (October 1927) "We–US & Co." (February 1928) "Decorations" (February 1928) "Subway Track Walkers" (July 1928) "The Linesman" (July 1928) "It Will Fall" (July 1928) "(Unnamed, shows miners)" (September 1928) "Strike!" (October 1928) "(Unnamed, shows miners)" (November 1928) "(Unnamed, with "Decaying Beauty")" (January 1929) "Proletarian Art" (March 1929) "Death of a Miner" (April 1929) "Iron Dinosaur" (July 1929) "An Anthology of American Negro Literature" (February 1930) "Subway" (March 1930) "Office Workers Lunch Hour" (April 1930) "The white bourgeois version of the Negro" (May 1930) "–as the white worker knows him" (May 1930) "Book Bargains" (May 1930) "Lynched Negro Worker" (September 1930) "(Unnamed, with "Strike!" and "Expensive")" (November 1930) "(Unnamed on back cover)" (November 1930) "...but Holy Father, look what we have done for the church!" (February 1931) "Unnamed (reads "Vive La Commune")" (March 1931) "Unnamed (with "Can You Make Out Their Voices")" (March 1931) "A Few Thoughts for 'Independence Day' On – Scottboro - Mooney & Billings - The Unemployed" (July 1931) "The Recruiting Agent, M.A., PH.D., D.D." (August 1931) "Books on Soviet Russia" (September 1931) "If Winter Comes" (September 1931) "Evolution of the Socialist Party" (November 1931) "The Mooney Case" (April 1932) "Ford" (May 1932) "Capitalist Crisis" (June 1932) "Equal Rights for Negroes" (July 1932) "Eviction" (July 1933) "Proposed Mural for the College of the City of New York" (July 1933) "(Unnamed, from The Paris Commune" (April 1934) "Symbols of Fascism" (October 1935) "Strike" (November 1935)

Books, pamphlets illustrated: Road to Cathay (1928) Treasure of the Château (1929) Boy's Gengis Khan (1930) In Lawrence's Bodyguard (1930) Land Spell (1930) American History Retold in Pictures (1931) Uproar in the Village (1933) Our Lenin (1934) Bananas: The Fruit Empire of Wall Street (1935)

Books written and illustrated: Around the World in a Mailbag (1932)