From National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair, the definitive biography of Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorker 's most iconic artists.
The issue date was March 29, 1976. The New Yorker cost 75 cents. And on the cover unfolded Saul Steinberg's vision of the world: New York City, the Hudson River, and then...well, it's really just a bunch of stuff you needn't concern yourself with. Steinberg's brilliant depiction of the world according to self-satisfied New Yorkers placed him squarely in the pantheon of the magazine's—and the era's—most celebrated artists.
But if you look beyond the searing wit and stunning artistry, you'll find one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. Born in Romania, Steinberg was educated in Milan andwas already famous for his satirical drawings when World War II forced him to immigrate to the United States. On a single day, Steinberg became a US citizen, a commissioned officer in the US Navy, and a member of the OSS, assigned to spy in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the war ended, he returned to America and to his art. He quickly gained entree into influential circles that included Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Willem de Kooning, and Le Corbusier. His wife was the artist Hedda Sterne, from whom heseparated in 1960 but never divorced and with whom he remained in daily contact for the rest ofhis life. This conveniently freed him up to amass a coterie of young mistresses and lovers. But his truly great love was the United States, wherehe traveled extensively by bus, train, and car, drawing, observing, and writing.
His body of work is staggering and influential in ways we may not yet even be able to fully grasp, quite possibly because there has not been a full-scale biography of him until now.Deirdre Bair had access to 177 boxes of documents and more than 400 drawings. In addition, she conducted several hundred personal interviews. Steinberg's curious talent for creating myths about himself did not make her joban easy one, but the result is a stunning achievementto admire and enjoy.

Best known for his barbed and brilliant art for <u>The New Yorker</u>, Saul Steinberg (1914&#8211;1999) did much more. He executed public murals, designed fabrics and stage sets, was an inventive collagist and printmaker, and turned his magic touch to the fields of painting, sculpture, advertising, and even wartime propaganda. This is the first comprehensive look at Steinberg’s extraordinary contribution to 20th-century art, which was that of a modern-day illuminator, putting word and image in play to create art that spoke to the eyes, and minds, of readers.
An introduction by poet Charles Simic tracks the origins of Steinberg’s darkly comic sensibility in the “Balkan bazaar” of his native Romania. Joel Smith shows how architectural training and an early rise to fame as a cartoonist in Fascist-era Milan honed the artist’s gift for subtle graphic invention, and explores why one of the most visible, prolific, potent, and cosmopolitan careers in postwar American art has so thoroughly evaded serious study. Tracing the evolving motives that underlie Steinberg’s multi-layered activity, this handsome volume also raises fundamental questions about the historiography of modernism and the vexed status of “the middlebrow avant-garde” in an age of museum-bound art.
Previously unseen sketches, documents, and printed matter from the artist’s papers illustrate the essay, career chronology, and entries for 120 objects featured in this important book.