Seymour Fleishman, 94; Chicago artist left his mark through children’s books
By MAUREEN O’DONNELL Staff Reporter modonnell@suntimes.com June 13, 2012 12:52AM
Seymour Fleishman - copy photo
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Updated: July 14, 2012 6:29AM
Seymour Fleishman’s books beckoned children to come inside and stay a while. Mr. Fleishman, 94, who graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, died last month at the Breakers senior-living apartments in the Edgewater neighborhood after a brief illness. He did the drawings for almost 100 books, about 80 of them works of children’s literature. He wrote and illustrated several books himself, including
Mr. Fleishman’s father, Nathan, died in the great flu epidemic of 1918, the year he was born. His mother, Rose, worked as a milliner to support him until she remarried and had two more children, Iris and Harvey Councelbaum, who died before him. The Albany Park native attended Von Steuben Upper Grade Center and Roosevelt High School, where he and other students formed their own art club. Mr. Fleishman served in the U.S. Army in Australia and New Guinea in World War II, working as a cartographer and sometime illustrator of newsletters and officers’ menus. His diary contains a sketch of a camp tour by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In economical strokes, it captures the excitement and tumult of a visit by the supreme commander of the Allied Powers. A mutual friend suggested that Esther Marcussen become his wartime pen pal. After the war, Mr. Fleishman landed a job as an artist in the promotions department of the old Chicago Sun newspaper, where Esther was a circulation executive. They married in 1946 and were together until her death in 2003. After a few years at the Sun, he struck out on his own as an illustrator.
“Sometimes, he would be up to all hours” working on sketches, said his daughter, Susan Shields. “He never wanted to say no to a job.”To research
Orphan, a book about a little raccoon, Mr. Fleishman asked a pet store to let its resident raccoon take up temporary residence at his home, said his other daughter, Jenny Fleishman, a Chicago Sun-Times editorial assistant. As it matured, it often could be found clinging to the family’s drapes. For an adventure, he and Esther moved the family to England for 1968 and 1969. That inspired his book
In addition to his children’s books, Mr. Fleishman was proud that his illustrations also were used to accompany an interview with the economist John Kenneth Galbraith that was published in Playboy magazine. Mr. Fleishman also did cartoons for Blue Cross-Blue Shield’s “LifeTimes” newsletter on themes of inflation, taxes and unemployment.
His artwork is in the collections of the Ohio State Cartoon Research Library, the Children’s Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota and the Special Children’s Collection of the University of Southern Mississippi. Mr. Fleishman often could be found in his studio, with his parakeet, Piccolo, nearby. “Piccolo would hop out of the cage and land on my dad’s curly hair, his shoulder or sometimes on his pen, which Dad was surprisingly tolerant of,” Jenny Fleishman said. “Occasionally, the bird ‘contributed’ to the artwork, and Dad would have to make corrections.” Mr. Fleishman’s and his wife’s volunteer efforts were instrumental in revitalizing the Second Unitarian Church on the North Side, their daughters said. He enjoyed listening to jazz, and he often spoke at schools to children about bookmaking, giving on-the-spot illustrations of Gus the Friendly Ghost.
