by Deirdre Bair
Claire Nivola’s collection of Steinbergiana is stunning in its originality and provides such a lovely history of the Nivola family’s important friendship with Steinberg that I regret I could only write about it and not show it. I thank her and her husband, Gus Kiley, for their hospitality and support.
I wish I could write a mini-biography about each of the “friends of Saul” who shared their memories with me, but I must content myself with simply listing their names and assuring them of my gratitude. Among the Steinberg Foundation’s trustees I thank Prudence Crowther, Ian Frazier, Jeffrey Hoffeld, and John Hollander for interviews; John Silberman and Donn Zaretsky for smoothing prickly paths. Steinberg’s niece and nephew, Daniella and Stèphane Roman, in Paris, Nice, and East Hampton, were generous with family archives and gracious hospitality; so, too, were his cousins, Sol and Judith Steinberg Bassow, from their home in Colorado.
Among Steinberg’s friends whom I wish to thank are: Ellen Adler, Roger Angell, Anna Aragno, Geraldine Aramanda, Dore Ashton, James Atlas, Marion Barthelme, Adam Baumgold, Ann Birstein, Aldo Buzzi, Gabriella Canfield, Ivan Chermayeff, Christo and Jeanne Claude, Arthur Danto, Richard Fadem, Russell Flinchum, Mary Frank, Nathan Garland, Mimi Gross, Elizabeth Hollander, Del Leu, Sabra Loomis, Lee Lorenz, George P. Lynes II, Norman and Cella Manea, James Marcus, Kevin Miserocchi, Eleanor Monro, Ruth Nivola, Vita Peterson, Mark Podwal, Gordon Pulis, Charles Simic, Benjamin Sonnenberg, Jeanne Steig, Jean Stein, Alexander Stille, Mario Tedeschini Lalli, Wendy Weil, Michelle White, and Drenka Willen.
Saul Steinberg left 177 boxes of archives to Yale University’s Beinecke Library. These include personal and professional correspondence, tax returns and financial documents, address books, daily appointment books and calendars, photos, objects collected in his travels and his postcard, stamp, comic book, and other collections. He saved everything, from takeout menus from his neighborhood restaurants to the baby bib crocheted by his mother. It took me almost six months of daily reading to go through these boxes, and as I did I gave thanks that I live in New Haven. The staff at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection was unfailingly kind, and I wish to thank Patricia Willis, Karen Nangle, and all those at the front desk who cheerfully grew muscles hoisting my boxes. Other research institutes that aided my research were the Archives of American Art at The Smithsonian Institution, the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation, the University of Chicago Special Collections, The Getty Research Institute Research Library, and the Menil Collection.
Writers are so lucky to have people in their personal life who do so much to ease the transition from scrawl to manuscript, and here again I’d like to write at length about all those who helped me, but I can only single out some. There are not enough thanks for the distinguished editor and dear friend John R. Ferrone, who gave me daily counsel, support, and friendship. I would have been lost without it. Aileen Ward has been a cherished mentor and one of the most important contributors to every aspect of my life and work. If a book can be said to have a fairy godmother, it is certainly Priscilla Morgan, who smoothed my path in too many crucial instances to mention here. Her indefatigable generosity of spirit was an inspiration. Kenneth and Roberta Nesheim gave me sound professional advice along with a personal friendship of so many years’ standing we have all lost count. My friendship deepened with two good friends from my years in the world of Simone de Beauvoir: I had only to mention that I needed editing help for Mary Lawrence Test to step in and do it, and, in research, Myrna Bell Rochester always found what I needed. I had several unfortunate computer hacking incidents as I wrote, and my friend, neighbor, and computer guru Thomas Henderson bailed me out of every one of them. Allison Stokes expanded my world by taking me into hers; I counted on Sydney Stern, the “other Gem,” for great book talk and interesting explorations along unusual byways.
Other friends contributed in so many ways: Lina Alpert, Neil Baldwin, Elissa Bruschini, Carol Chiodo, Lisa Corva, Nancy Cardozo Cowles, Patricia DeMaio, Jane Denning, Jay Edelman, Diane Jacobs, Laurence Lockridge, Elaine Lewis, Kenneth MacKenzie, Nancy MacKnight, Marion Meade, Jean Nathan, Patricia O’Toole, Joan Schenkar, Kenneth Silverman, Eoin and Maeve Slavin, Stephanie Steiker, Rosemary Sullivan, Beverly and Barry Wellman, and Lawrence Weschler.
At Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, I had the great good fortune to work with Ronit Feldman on editorial matters and Katherine J. Trager on legal issues. Emily Mahon designed the jacket, Pei Loi Koay was the interior designer, and Liz Duvall was the copy editor—all three were brilliant and I thank them. Our production crew included Roméo Enriquez, and for marketing and publicity, respectively, I thank John Pitts and Kristen Gastler.
Most of all, I must thank the inimitable Nan Talese, who makes beautiful books, and with this one—despite sometimes insupportable problems—produced one of her best. Her patience and support sustained me for several years, and it is my privilege to count myself as one of her writers. I say the same about my agent, Kristine Dahl, whose client I am privileged to be, and I thank Kris and her assistant, Laura Neely, who both make things happen in a flash.
Moving to the truly personal, I am fortunate to have such amazing adult children and I thank the talented four: Katney Bair, Vonn Scott Bair, my son-in-law Niko Courtelis, and my “Swedish son” Bjorn Lindahl. My granddaughter, Isabel Courtelis, continues to amaze and delight me, and now she fixes my computer (how lucky can you get?). This book is also for the memory of Lavon H. Bair.
My siblings give professional as well as personal support: my brother Vincent J. Bartolotta Jr., takes care of the legal, and his wife Judy, and my sister Linda Rankin, provide the medical. My cousins keep our large family united: Toni Jo and Archie Allridge, Leah Balliard, and all the Bartolottas: Joan and Bart, Camera, Devin, and our memory of Robin.
Finally, this book is dedicated to the patriarch of our family, my uncle Aldo L. Bartolotta, who makes everyone smile when he tells them he never had a bad day. “No wonder,” says his wife, my Aunt Joan. “He gave them all to me.”
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
Wherever possible, I have used the same abbreviations used by The Saul Steinberg Foundation.
ARCHIVES
AAA/DC: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
HR/Getty: The Harold Rosenberg Papers, 1923–84, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession 980048. Box and folder numbers are cited here.
SSF: The Saul Steinberg Foundation, New York. SSF holds artwork by ST, some original archival material, and other documentation related to the artist’s life and work.
WMAA: Saul Steinberg, text by Harold Rosenberg. Publication of the 1978 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1978: Alfred A. Knopf in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art).
YCAL: The Saul Steinberg Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. ST bequeathed his papers, sketchbooks, and smaller artworks to the Yale University Art Gallery. As of 2011, YCAL Uncat. Mss. 126 contained 133 boxes of papers and nearly forty boxes of drawings.
FREQUENTLY USED NAMES
AB:
Aldo Buzzi
Ada:
Ada Ongari Cassola
DB:
Deirdre Bair
HS:
Hedda Sterne
IF:
Ian Frazier
MTL:
Mario Tedeschini Lalli
PC:
Prudence Crowther
SS:
Sigrid Spaeth
ST:
Saul Steinberg
TNY:
The New Yorker
FREQUENTLY CITED WORKS
R & S: Reflections and Shadows by Saul Steinberg with Aldo Buzzi. Trans. John Shepley. New York: Random House, 2002.
R & S Outtakes: Unpublished portions of Reflections and Shadows
Romanian letters: Family letters in Romanian are in YCAL, boxes 5–8, 12, 14, 56, 67, and 86, mostly in correspondence folders. The le
tters were scanned, organized, and when necessary dated by Iain Topliss, who supplied a set of the scans to SSF. The translations made for SSF are by Emil Niculescu, © SSF. Hereafter “Romanian Letters,” SSF.
S:I: Saul Steinberg: Illuminations by Joel Smith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
WMAA: Saul Steinberg, text by Harold Rosenberg. Publication of the 1978 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1978: Alfred A. Knopf in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art).
CHAPTER TWO: A DECIDEDLY PECULIAR PLACE
Romania, a half civilized: Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia, A Princess in Exile (New York: Viking, 1932), p. 32.
for him to be born there: Paul Cummings, “Saul Steinberg Interviews, March 27, 1973,” Archives of American Art Oral History Program, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, unpaginated transcript.
His parents celebrated June 14: Various sources supply different dates for the gradual adoption of the Gregorian calendar among the Catholic, Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox portions of Romania. When ST came to the United States, he celebrated with his closest friends on June 28, but he told everyone else the date was June 15. ST’s niece and nephew, Dana and Stéphane Roman, both believe the family celebrated on June 14, as did his wife, Hedda Sterne, but on June 28, 1994, he wrote that he was celebrating his eightieth birthday: “b. June 15, 1914 in the old style (Julian Calendar, changed to Gregorian-new style by adding 13 days. 15 + 13 = 28.” From spiral notebook, June 1994, YCAL, Box 95.
Cuza proclaimed the founding: Historical information comes from Mrs. Will Gordon, Roumania Yesterday and Today (London: Bodley Head, 1919), p. 62; Edward Behr, Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (New York: Villard, 1991), p. 35; and Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol. 2, p. 4.
forced emigration of Romanian Jews: Edward Mandell House and Charles Seymour, eds., What Really Happened at Paris: The Story of the Peace Conference, 1918–19, by American Delegates (New York: Scribner, 1921), p. 220.
served two terms: ST, diary entry in spiral notebook, April 23–July 5, 1991, n.d. but it follows May 19, YCAL, Box 75.
whose patronymic was never recorded: A note on Moritz Steinberg’s birth certificate, nr. 366/1877, issued by the Husi City Hall, states that his official name was Herscu Fridman. In a document entitled “Genealogy—Rotman” (the original married name of ST’s sister, later known as Lica Roman), copy SSF, there is mention of an authentic notarized document, nr. 719, of October 1918, from the Fourth Court in Bucharest, stating that Moritz Steinberg is the same person as Herscu Fridman. There is no mention of this name or its change or correction in any other official documents presently known (as of 2012) to ST’s heirs or SSF, or in the family genealogy prepared by Judith Steinberg Bassow (Martin’s granddaughter), who graciously made originals in her possession and copies available to me. Bassow prepared her genealogy with the cooperation of ST, and in one of the corrections and additions in his hand, he wrote that his grandmother Clara’s name was sometimes given as Hinke and that she died in 1931. To write the family genealogy, I also consulted ST’s letter to his niece, Daniela (Dana) Roman, February 9, 1991; ST’s correspondence with AB, published in Italian as Lettere a Aldo Buzzi, 1945–99, ed. Aldo Buzzi (Milan: Adelphi, 2002); and an unpublished English translation by John Sheply (through 1977) and James Marcus (1978–99), made for SSF. Also R & S and R & S Outtakes. Some genealogical documents that are also in possession of SSF can be found in YCAL, Box 9.
two of Moritz’s brothers: Berl Steinberg settled in Arizona. His son, Phil, became one of ST’s favorite relatives and correspondents. For a photo showing Phil’s uncanny resemblance to ST, see S:I, p. 263. Family correspondence (where appropriate in later chapters) will show that Harry Steinberg and his daughter, Henrietta Danson, were instrumental in bringing ST to the United States in 1941; that Martin Steinberg assisted; and that later, he and his son, Charles, joined ST in providing financial support for relatives who had settled in Israel.
The Steinbergs had been Romanian: ST occasionally joked (as he did in ST to AB, March 18, 1988) that he should have called himself Saul Tiraspol, for that was a better name for an artist than Steinberg.
living in Walachia for at least six generations: ST, diary entry in spiral notebook, n.d., but following May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75; Dana Roman, interview, January 7, 2008; Stéphane Roman, interviews, January 12 and 13, 2008. Unless otherwise noted, genealogical information comes from these interviews and from the Steinberg family genealogies prepared by Judith Steinberg Bassow.
the family had taken the name Jacobson: Iancu is the Romanian form of Jacob, Itic is Isaac. Norman Manea, interview, June 11, 2008, told me that Jacobson would be a logical Westernization of this name.
“a peculiar sort of Romanian”: Cummings, “ST Interviews.”
“trussed [them] up”: Hannah Pakula, The Last Romantic: The Life of the Legendary Marie, Queen of Roumania (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 116. Pakula is quoting in part Ethel Greening Pantazzi, Roumania in Light and Shadow (Toronto: Ryerson, n.d.), p. 77. The eye shadow information is from Norman Stone, World War One (New York: Basic Books, 2009).
military figures that later populated his grandson’s art: See, for example, ST’s commercial drawing for the jacket cover of Stephen Borsody’s The Tragedy of Europe (New Haven: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1980). See also R & S, p. 8, for ST’s father in uniform. Other examples of ST’s art, particularly in the 1980s, are replete with military figures and are cited in later chapters.
the pleasure of looking at girls: ST to AB, May 24, 1996, SSF.
When he wrote down: Diary entry in spiral notebook, May 24, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.
married there on December 6, 1911: The name of Rosa Steinberg’s father was inserted into hers on the marriage license. Diary entry in spiral notebook, n.d., but following May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.
was born prematurely: This, and information that follows unless otherwise noted, is from a genealogy of the Steinberg/Roman family (Lica Steinberg married Ilie Roman in Bucharest on April 29, 1942) prepared by Judith Steinberg Bassow and annotated by ST, from versions of the ST/Bassow genealogy and others in SSF, from interviews and conversations with Daniela Roman, January 7, 2008, and Stéphane Roman, January 12 and 13, 2008, and from e‑mails and telephone conversations with Judith Steinberg Bassow throughout 2010–11.
Rosa kept him bedridden for six months: Daniela Roman, interview, July 24, 2007, Amagansett, N.Y.
“the General:” Daniela Roman, in conversation, July 25, 2008, Amagansett, N.Y.
began to feature Zia Elena: Zia Elena first appeared in the Italian satirical newspaper Bertoldo when ST was a student in Milan. For examples, see S:I, fig. 12, pp. 26–27 and p. 87, fig. 2.
sub rosa: ST, diary in spiral notebook, May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.
a “horror” and a “terrorist”: These terms were used in interviews and conversations in 2007–8 with Dana and Stéphane Roman; HS, interviews and conversations, 2007–8; Ruth Nivola, interview, July 24, 2007; ST’s YCAL correspondence and diaries (one example being YCAL, Box 75); ST’s letters to HS at AAA/DC. In conversation, May 7, 2008, HS insisted that “you [DB] can never say too strongly how much Saul hated his mother. He despised her.”
Moritz told Rosa he had a daughter: Dana and Stéphane Roman were unable to find genealogical proof to support a rumor in the Steinberg family that Moritz had been legally married to Sofia’s mother, who died in childbirth, the date being variously given in family records as September 4 and September 11. They did verify that Sofia was raised by her mother’s family, and a photo of her is in the Steinberg family album originally kept by Rosa and Moritz and now in possession of Dana Roman, copy in SSF. The photo caption states that Sofia Steinberg was ST’s half-sister and gives her birth date as September 11. In diary entry in spiral notebook, n.d., but following May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75, ST writes of a possible early marriage in Braila and posits that the d
aughter’s name may have been Rebeccah and her birth date September 4, 1911.
Saul’s memory of this family drama: ST, diary entry in spiral notebook, n.d., but following May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.
There were many things she thought were her due: HS, interview, September 9, 2007. All examples of Rosa’s behavior are from this interview.
“radar with mother”: ST gave “Examples of Radar with Mother” in a diary note, January 7, 1960, YCAL, Box 3. Norman Manea wrote of it in “Made in Romania,” New York Review of Books 47, no. 2 (February 10, 2000).
“the only taboo”: Cella and Norman Manea, interview June 11, 2008, New York.
“the perfect intangibility of love”: HS, conversation, May 7, 2007.
He was between six and eight months old: ST, diary entry in spiral notebook, n.d., but following May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75. In ST to AB, November 1, 1988, ST writes that he lived in Râmnicul-Sărat for only six months “and then goodbye, off to [Bucharest].” He is vague and somewhat contradictory elsewhere about where they lived during his father’s desertion, which makes it seem that they also lived in Buzău with him.
“prehistoric monster”: ST to AB, September 29, and October 1, 1998.
