Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  “strange, that a place”: HS to ST, “Saturday p.m.” Internal evidence suggests April 9, 1955, YCAL, microfilm.

  “a sign”: HS to ST, “Sunday evening 12:30,” YCAL, microfilm reel 144–45. In the letter she put the phrase in quotation marks.

  “I’m terrorized”: ST to HS, “Saturday, April 2, 1955,” AAA.

  With the exception of Alberto Moravia’s: The Flaiano novel deals with the Italian occupation of Ethopia, which reminded ST of something he saw on a bus trip to the nearby town of Forte de Marini: “I saw on the road a cart pulled by a donkey. Inside the cart there was a big white ox. The man was leading the little donkey, donkey pulling ox. It was funny for a moment till you realized that the ox was being taken to the abbatoir. There is some moral here somewhere. Maybe about collaborationism.” ST to HS, Friday, April 1, 1955, AAA.

  “unbalanced and too sensitive”: ST to HS, “Viareggio, Tuesday,” internal evidence suggests early April 1955, AAA.

  He accidentally ran into: ST, datebook, April 5, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

  He told his diary something different: ST, datebook, April 4, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

  She begged him to believe: Ada to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests spring 1955, YCAL; “Milano, 1956,” probably written at the end of 1955 to reassure him of her maternal feelings and send New Year’s greetings for 1956.

  “I feel fine”: ST to HS, Friday April 1, 1955, AAA.

  The image was so intense: The drawing is in his 1955 datebook between the pages for April 4 and 5, YCAL, Box 3.

  “sick with fear”: ST to HS, Tuesday, April 12, 1955, AAA.

  When she told him she was thinking: ST to HS, “Wednesday night, April 13 [1955],” AAA.

  “half in doubt”: HS to ST, April 23 [1955], YCAL, microfilm.

  In her customary way: HS to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests mid-April 1955, YCAL, microfilm reel.

  “I am living in a kind of atmosphere”: HS to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests late March–early April 1955, YCAL, microfilm reel.

  “the ghetto group”: Although Leo Lerman does not mention ST or HS in his published letters, he was a frequent visitor to their home during these years. HS writes: “Leo Lerman comes to lunch, he needs my help and advice.” Sonia Orwell had become a closer friend to HS than to ST, and sent HS volumes of “early Proust” because of their mutual interest. Norman Mailer invited HS alone to parties and dinners.

  If she worried about anything: She was right to worry: almost fifty years later she fell victim to macular degeneration, and this ended her painting career. References to the people she saw and parties she attended are from the YCAL microfilm letters, all undated, ranging between February and April 1955.

  When he asked her to tell him: HS to ST, an undated letter attached to the previous undated one, written on the tiny sheets of pocket notebook paper that she favored for her philosophical ruminations. These are scattered throughout the YCAL boxes and are often not in coherent order.

  “with each meal I cook for you”: HS to ST, n.d., YCAL, microfilm reel 144–45, her emphasis.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A DEFLATING BALLOON

  “I was his long-suffering, uninterruptedly betrayed wife”: HS, interview, September 9, 2007.

  “certainly one of the best”: ST to HS, “Wednesday night April 13 [1955],” AAA.

  “How horrible the mud splashes”: ST to HS, “Tuesday morning,” (April 1955), AAA. His datebook for 1955, YCAL, Box 3, mentions one meeting with Hayter.

  “small fry abstracts”: ST to HS, “April 23, Sat. Nite” (1955), AAA.

  Making the selection created: ST, diary, May 27, 1955, YCAL, Box 3. Eventually the book contained approximately 200 drawings.

  While choosing them and working: ST to HS, “Thursday morning” (April 1955), AAA.

  At the same time, Robert Delpire: “Labyrinthe,” a prefiguration of the title given by ST to his 1960 book, The Labyrinth.

  “There may be trouble here”: ST to HS, “April 20 evening” (1955), AAA.

  “I don’t want to be shown”: ST to HS, “Tuesday Morning,” (mid-April 1955), AAA.

  Moritz added to Saul’s confusion: Moritz Steinberg to ST, Nice, January 26, 1955, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

  Brooding over the conflicting claims: ST mentions dining with Giacometti on several occasions in the AAA correspondence; HS returned to this friendship many times throughout the 2007 interviews.

  “never one of those artists’ wives”: HS, interview, 2007.

  “What about you?”: ST to HS, April 25, 1955, AAA.

  Hedda was fascinated by all the existentialists: HS, telephone conversation, 2007.

  Wedged into their social program: ST to HS, April 15, 1955, AAA.

  “On top of that, they are in Bucharest”: ST to HS, “April 20 evening” (1955), AAA.

  “after I troubled the whole Palestine”: ST to HS, April 27, 1955, AAA.

  “envied for a moment”: ST to HS, “April 15, 55,” AAA.

  Eventually he and Gallimard agreed: ST to HS, “Friday night” (April 1955), AAA.

  “kind of anthology”: ST to AB, December 27, 1955, SSF.

  “NO Stonington”: ST to HS, “Friday night” (April 1955), AAA.

  He spent his last days in Paris: ST, diary, June 26–27, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

  Most of his interaction had been: ST had extensive correspondence with Hélion and Miro, to cite two examples. Their letters are currently uncatalogued and scattered throughout the YCAL boxes.

  “Note: alone”: ST, datebook, April 22, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

  “What I learned from Artists”: ST, datebook, n.d. but probably early 1980s, YCAL, Box 38.

  Now, on the way home: The most striking representation is his TNY cover of February 5, 1972, in which a figure of a man stands between two signs pointing in opposite directions. He is turned away from the one reading “before” and faces the one reading “after.”

  If he read something he liked: Among those to whom he wrote were Lore Siegel, Alice Munro, Veronica Geng, IF, and Donald Barthelme.

  “In order to become a fox”: ST, diary, November 25, 1955, YCAL, Box 3. Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History, was originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson (London, 1953), and read by ST in that edition.

  While in Paris, he did buy: ST to HS, “Friday night” (April 1955), AAA.

  Jim Geraghty took him to lunch: ST did not become a member of the Century Association until 1965, proposed by Eric Larrabee and seconded by Sidney Simon. He resigned on October 19, 1975, in a letter to Russell Lynes, saying that he never used the club and saw no purpose in continuing his membership. I am grateful to Dr. Russell Flinchum, the Century archivist, for providing this information.

  He was still thinking about the self-knowledge: Information that follows is from ST, datebook, September 9 to December 30, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

  He was discreet: ST, 1955 datebook, YCAL, Box 3; one of the Parisian encounters was “Marielouise L.,” December 1954, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

  There was so much to do: ST, National Diary Page-A-Day, January 3, 1956, YCAL, Box 3.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: A GRAND OLD-FASHIONED JOURNEY

  “I’ve made a grand old-fashioned journey”: ST to AB, April 13, 1956, SSF.

  There was much to do: ST, 1956 National Diary appointment book, YCAL, Box 3.

  “the cruelest humorist”: “L’intransigeant,” Paris-presse, February 2, 1956, p. 7C, YCAL, Box 70.

  “quiet Englishman”: ST to HS, February 17, 1956, AAA.

  He was also thankful: ST to HS, February 18, 20, and 21, 1956, from Leningrad, AAA.

  He was assigned a woman guide: Information from a second datebook for 1956 dedicated to ST’s diary of the Russian trip, YCAL, Box 3.

  he insisted on seeing the Finland Station: Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1940). The Finland Railroad Station was the terminus for trains from Helsin
ki and Vyborg and was made famous when V. I. Lenin went through it on his return to Russia.

  “three horses galloping”: ST to HS, Tuesday, February 21, 1956, AAA.

  At this point, he didn’t care: He bought so many things that he had to find a Russian bank to cash $300 in travelers’ checks. ST, Russian datebook, February 20, 1956, YCAL, Box 3; ST to HS, February 23 and 27, 1956, and cable February 27, 1956, all AAA.

  Everything in Moscow was “enormous”: Figure 49 in S:I, p. 51, shows vividly the vastness of the square and how it dwarfs the people in it.

  Much of the rest of his three days: In his Russian datebook he wrote only the last names of the embassy people (Conant, Bohlen, White) or the reporters (Raymond of the New York Times, Levine of CBS, Schorr of the Chicago Tribune); YCAL, Box 3.

  He liked his interpreter: His writing is unclear, and the name may have been Yonkin.

  “Turkish verandas”: ST, diary, March 4, 5, and 6, 1956, YCAL, Box 3.

  They went on to the Ivari Monastery: In his diary, ST mistakenly calls it the Samtavro Monastery.

  the young historian: Later known as Priscilla Johnson MacMillan, who wrote about Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, and other topics pertaining to modern Russia.

  “sensitive and brutal faces”: Vladimir Maximov was the dissident author of Seven Days of Creation, A Train for Moscow, and the memoir of his adolescence, Adieu from Nowhere. He was sent to a mental hospital, exiled to Paris, and later permitted to return to Moscow.

  Bohlen also arranged an interview: ST mistakenly gives the name as “Shugnov” in his diary, YCAL, Box 3. Voks was the official U.S.S.R. journal published by the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Highly propagandistic, it was so thoroughly reviled abroad that in 1958 it was discontinued, reorganized, and reissued under another name and with more objective content.

  “whether [Averell] Harriman”: ST wrote this in a little notebook where he jotted things that struck his fancy, now YCAL, Box 95. According to PC, the contents of Box 95 were so important to ST that he kept them in his bedside table.

  He stole the telephone directory: WMAA, p. 241.

  “Thank you my darling”: In an interview, April 18, 2007, HS said, “This was one of my favorite stories about Saul.” In his 1956 datebook, ST gave the man’s remark as “My darling, I must go!”

  “The smell of fear”: Jean Stein vanden Heuvel, “An Interview with Saul Steinberg,” typescript, YCAL, Box 38, eventually edited into the article published in Life.

  “frozen snow, Bolshoi”: ST to AB, April 13, 1956, SSF.

  “a trip for my nose”: WMAA, p. 241.

  He worked from notes: These notes are in YCAL, Box 7, and appear to be companions to his YCAL sketchbooks 199–202b, 4860, 4869.

  “Comments about buildings in USSR”: YCAL, Box 7.

  “the best reporting”: Arthur Caylor, San Francisco News, September 29, 1956.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: COVERING 14,000 MILES

  “Back from Alaska”: ST to AB, September 17, 1956, SSF.

  A check had come in: Statement in YCAL, Box 7, n.d.

  Added to all these: Correspondence with Alexander Lindey, January 25, 1956 to March 7, 1956, YCAL, Box 7.

  “in consideration of the sum”: These contracts appear annually among ST’s correspondence in the YCAL boxes; here, I refer specifically to the one sent by R. Hawley Truax with accompanying letter dated October 22, 1954.

  In that one, Steinberg drew: Joel Smith corroborates ST’s habit of recycling old work for other purposes in S:I, p. 44.

  “Operation Steinberg”: Manuel Gasser, “Steinberg as an Advertising Artist,” Graphis no. 63–68 (January–December 1956): 376–85.

  In one ad for Noilly Prat: Ibid., p. 381, cites research figures for 1956 that show Noilly Pratt “achieved the biggest sales success in its own or any other trade sector.”

  For Schweppes, he created: This drawing, like the ad he did for Postum in 1943, contains portions of subject matter used before. The most blatant examples of ST’s recycling are in the designs for the firms Patterson and Greef for wallpaper and fabrics of European cityscapes, all of which he worked and reworked for several years. One example is his 1946 ad for D’Orsay perfume, which shows up later in the fabric designs, particularly those for Patterson. See also S:I, p. 44.

  Perhaps the most wildly imaginative print ads: Winius Brandon Company Advertising, St. Louis, Missouri, YCAL, Box 7.

  “demands coincide with your aspirations”: James Geraghty to ST, November 10, 1954, YCAL, Box 8.

  a television commercial for Jell-O: The ad, which was a huge success in 1955, came in for severe criticism on the post-feminist Internet in 2009, when it was described as a “grim animated commercial … It shows a haggard woman on a treadmill being assaulted by symbols. The look on her face is one of pure despair. The female narrator seems to be taunting her. The plaintive harmonica tune that’s playing is both sad and intentionally insipid. At the woman’s blackest moment, she gets covered up by a black scrawl … All is cured, of course, once she buys a box of Jell-O instant pudding.” From www.boingboing.net/2009/08/12depressing-1950’s-jel.html.

  “comic draughtsman”: From a statement prepared by Hallmark and used in its advertising, YCAL, Box 8.

  Unquestionably he had arrived commercially: Because these requests are so many and can be found in almost every YCAL Box, I merely alert the scholar to their existence without naming any specifically.

  “Left by car”: ST, datebook, 1956, YCAL, Box 3, and HS, interviews, 2007.

  “the beauty of an eventless life”: HS to ST, “the 31 January,” internal evidence suggests 1944 as it is in reply to his of “Jan 18,” YCAL, microfilm letters.

  “some room, any room”: HS to ST, Reno, May 31 [1944], YCAL, microfilm letters.

  “an understanding between [two] people”: HS to ST, “Feb 23,” probably 1943, YCAL, microfilm letters.

  “a rather bad attitude”: HS to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests May 1944, when she was en route to Reno for her divorce from Fred Stafford, YCAL, microfilm letters.

  In the Pacific Northwest: Several years later, ST received a letter concerning things he bought on the trip. On November 25, 1958, YCAL, Box 6, Michael Train asked if ST was still interested in having rugs or serapes made to his design. The artist, a Native American whom ST had befriended, “is growing listless from lack of fresh designs to work on. He is a neurotic Indian who suffers in part from what used to be called ‘artistic temperament’ and when forced to continually turn out the so-called ‘authentic designs’ has a tendency to get drunk or spend all his time playing the saxophone … I consider it to my advantage to keep him busy.” Train also offered to sell ST “sneeze powder, collapsing forks, dribble glasses, and squirting boutonnieres.”

  Saul said that like Cornell: Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), p. 134.

  Rothko’s insistence that he painted: James Breslin, Mark Rothko: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 243.

  When Hedda painted the Newmans: References to Cornell, Rothko, and the Newmans which are similar to these quotes can be found in the undated letters of HS, internal evidence suggesting the early 1950s, in YCAL, microfilm letters. HS gave the paintings of the Newmans to Priscilla Morgan, who bequeathed them to Vassar College.

  On the other hand, Hedda often spoke: Two such examples are HS to ST, “Reno, May 31,” and “Monday 21” [probably 1944], YCAL, microfilm letters.

  “a disaster—everything was in poor shape”: Appraisal, YCAL, Box 7, Folder 20.

  “charming clients really”: Schuman, Schuman & Furman to Alexander Lindey, March 30, 1957, YCAL, Box 7.

  However, it still took both lawyers: Alexander Lindey to ST, June 26 and July 29, 1957, YCAL, Box 7, Folder 17.

  “I enjoy chopping wood”: ST to AB, November 1956, SSF.

  “bad mood because I’m dissatisfied”: ST to AB, December 10, 1956, and March 1
0, 1957.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: SIX PEOPLE TO SUPPORT

  “Latest news: sister out of Romania”: ST to AB, October 5, 1957, SSF.

  The scenery was not enough: Information that follows is from interviews and conversations with HS; WMAA, p. 242; documents pertaining to the purchase and sale of the Citroën from YCAL, Box 7.

  “A gentleman of Madrid”: ST to insurance agent Michel H. Lobut, rue de Richelieu, Paris, June 25, 1957, YCAL, Box 7.

  On their way home: On July 1, 1957, he deposited the proceeds of the sale, $1,745, in his account at Chemical Corn Exchange Bank, YCAL, Box 7.

  Richard Lindner, for example: HS to ST, n.d. but probably from the mid-1950s, YCAL, microfilm, reel 144–45.

  But the friendship with the Stilles: Interviews and conversations with HS, Ruth Nivola, Claire Nivola, Alexander Stille; letters and documents cited where appropriate.

  Stille was educated: Alexander Stille, in conversation on January 6, 2009, believed that both his father and ST may have been involved with Leo Longanesi’s magazine Omnibus, but he was not sure they knew each other before the war, as they lived in different cities.

  Steinberg never gave up his love: Letizia Airos Soria, “The Language of Ugo, Alexander, and Sam,” IADP i-Italy, June 1, 2008, http://www.i-italy.org/2279/language-ugo-alexander-sam. See also Stille’s “Steinberg Diario Italiano: Gli anni della formazione e della persecuzione razziale,” La Dominica di Repubblica, August 10, 2008.

  Ugo often traveled for his job: “Ugo Stille” was a pen name adopted in the 1930s when he wrote a column with the poet Giamme Pintor for the magazine Oggi. When Pintor was killed by the Germans during the war, Kamenetzki took the name Michael Ugo Stille in partial tribute to him. Stille’s obituary in the (London) Independent, June 12, 1995, called him “one of the most famous Italian journalists of the last fifty years and one of the best editors of Italy’s most authoritative newspaper, the Corriere della Sera of Milan. In Italy, he was recognized as the best of the Italian correspondents in the United States and the key point of reference for anyone wishing to understand that country.”