Born: 12 May 1921, Austria
Died: 24 August 2022
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Lily Renée Willheim, L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, Lily Renée Phillips
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Lily Renée Phillips was an Austrian-born American artist in the 1940s comic-book scene. She used names like L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney. She escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna to work in New York City, illustrating for Fiction House publisher on features like “Jane Martin,” “The Werewolf Hunter,” “The Lost World,” and “Señorita Rio.”
She grew up in 1930s Vienna in a well-off Jewish family. Her father, Rudolf Willheim, managed the Holland America line, a transatlantic steamship company. She adored art as a kid and often drew. Around 1938 or 1939, at 14, Lily left for the UK on the Kindertransport, leaving her parents in Nazi-occupied Austria. At 16, she joined them in New York. There, she rediscovered her art passion.
At Fiction House, needing female artists due to WWII, Lily became a penciler and inker. She collaborated with fellow women comic creators like Nina Albright and Fran Hopper. By 1942 or 1943, as Lily Renée, she worked on Fiction House’s “Jane Martin.” The series followed a brave female pilot in a male aviation world and started a successful career for Phillips.