University News
Raizman Obituary
February 25, 2021
MACOMB, IL – Former Western Illinois University Department of Art Chair David Raizman, 69, passed away Feb. 22 in Abington, PA.
After completing his dissertation, Raizman accepted a tenure-track position at WIU in 1980. He served as an assistant professor of art at WIU from 1980-1985, and department chair from 1987-89. During his tenure at WIU, he was a part of the Honors College teaching faculty, chaired the Council on Intercollegiate Athletics, wrote for the WIU Libraries' publication, "Directions," Art Professor Fred Jones' publication, "Landscapes," and the WIU Regional Studies journal. Raizman also served as a faculty guide for freshman orientation, and was a member of the Humanities Forum Council and the Graduate Committee.
After leaving WIU, Raizman and his family returned to their home state of Pennsylvania when he accepted a position at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Raizman retired from Drexel's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design as a Distinguished University Professor in 2017.
He earned his doctorate, master's and bachelor's degrees at the University of Pittsburgh. He initially specialized in medieval Spanish manuscripts, and he continued to publish occasional articles on medieval Spanish topics into the mid-2000s. However, a second and arguably more significant chapter in his scholarly career began in the 1990s, after he agreed to teach a course on the history of modern design at the request of Drexel's design faculty. He taught the first iteration of his combined history of graphic design, industrial design, and decorative arts course in 1992. After struggling to find a suitable textbook to assign his students, he decided to write his own. Raizman published the first edition of History of Modern Design in 2003 and a second edition in 2010. It is now a standard text in design history courses around the world. Raizman was preparing the third edition at the time of his death.
He was a member of the College Art Association (CAA) affiliated society Design Studies Forum, he organized design history sessions at CAA conferences, and he organized and presented in sessions about design history at three consecutive NASAD annual meetings in the 2010s. He co-edited Objects, Audiences, and Literatures (2007) with Carma Gorman; he co-edited Expanding Nationalisms at World's Fairs (2017) with Ethan Robey; and most recently, he wrote Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context (2020), a collection of essays on seven oft-misunderstood items in the graphic design history canon.
He is survived by his wife, Lucy, his daughter Rebecca (David Newman) and son Josh (Sommer Mateer), his grandson Jacob, and many relatives, friends, colleagues, and students. Graveside services will be held in Pittsburgh. Memorial services will be announced at a later date.
A complete obituary can be found at legacy.com/obituaries/inquirer.
Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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