22 Facts About Winold Reiss

Winold Reiss was a German-born American artist and graphic designer.

Winold Reiss was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1886, the second son of Fritz Winold Reiss and his wife.

Winold Reiss grew up surrounded by art, as his father was a well-known Schwarzwald landscape artist and portrait painter.

Winold Reiss studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munchen under Franz von Stuck where he met his future wife, Englishwoman Henrietta Luthy.

In October 1913, Winold Reiss boarded the SS Imperator and immigrated to America against the will of his parents.

Winold Reiss was excited to think he might be able to paint them.

Winold Reiss's philosophy was that an artist must travel to find the most interesting subjects; influenced by his father and his own curiosity, he drew subjects from many peoples and walks of life.

Winold Reiss first had clients among the ethnic Germans in New York and worked as a commercial designer.

Winold Reiss made relationships that he kept for the rest of his life, and returned to the West to paint Native Americans.

Winold Reiss made more than 250 paintings of Native Americans, especially the Blackfeet of Montana.

In 1921, Winold Reiss returned once to Germany for a visit, but settled again in New York City in 1922, where he opened an art school.

Winold Reiss illustrated Alain Locke's historic 1925 anthology The New Negro, an important book about African American culture at the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1925, Winold Reiss offered free tuition to the young Aaron Douglas, who had just arrived in Harlem.

Winold Reiss persuaded Locke to let Douglas contribute illustrations to the second edition of The New Negro.

Winold Reiss blended Art Deco with portraiture which captured the history of Cincinnati through its people.

In 1935, Winold Reiss designed the interior for the first Longchamps restaurant, the first restaurant design with exclusively Indian motifs.

In 1938, Winold Reiss painted 8 oval murals for a Longchamps restaurant in the Empire State Building, named Temptation, Contemplation, Liberation, Anticipation, Animation, Fascination, Adoration and Exultation.

Winold Reiss was known for painting a broad cross section of peoples in the United States.

Winold Reiss's portraits were considered to be both compassionate and objective, moreso than any artist before him.

Winold Reiss bought a former bank building in Carson City as a studio and place to retire, but never moved into this house.

In 1951, after his first stroke, Winold Reiss recovered again, but after his second stroke in 1952, he remained paralyzed.

Winold Reiss married in Germany and his wife was pregnant when he left for the US in 1913.