Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  In later years Max’s Kansas City: SS often invited Mimi Gross to join her and was undeterred when MG refused and asked her not to go either.

  Unfortunately, the trip was not all sunlight: Repeated letters from Sports Illustrated, which ST did not answer, are in YCAL, Box 14.

  Lincoln Center wanted posters: These are among the many in the burgeoning files in YCAL, Boxes 14 and 15.

  In Italy, Rizzoli wanted to publish: Rizzoli Editore to ST, December 13, 1962; Feltrinelli Editore to ST, September 26, 1962, both in YCAL, Box 14.

  There were other foreign requests: Steinberg’s Paperback (Munich: Rowohlt, 1964).

  he still managed to produce: The covers were April 2 and September 17, 1960; January 28, June 10, and September 9, 1961; May 19 and October 6, 1962.

  He had designed several book jackets: They included endpapers for May Natalie Tabak (Rosenberg), But Not for Love (New York: Horizon, 1960); dust jacket for Erich Kuby, The Sitzkrieg of Private Stefan (New York: Farrar, Straus, Cudahy, 1962); dust jacket and title page for Martin Meyerson et al., Housing, People, and Cities (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962). ST’s covers included those for Art in America 49, no. 2 (1961); Opera News 25 (April 29, 1961); JAIP 27 (August, 1961). Jesse Reichek was also a professor of design at the College of Environmental Design, U.C. Berkeley. His letter to ST is September 11, 1961, YCAL, Box 14.

  “the man involved in his own history”: ST’s letter to Katherine Kuh is reprinted in S:I, Appendix, p. 240; original is in KK Papers, YCAL, Box 2, Folder 28.

  He was grateful for invitations from women: Elaine de Kooning asked him to contribute $100 for an ad in the New York Times to support an unnamed group taking “action for peace.” All these invitations are YCAL, Box 14.

  “bellicose postcards”: Harold Rosenberg, homage to Ad Reinhardt, HR/Getty, Box 32, Folder 32/6.

  “740 Hindu priests in New Delhi”: Ad Reinhardt, undated postcard referring to February 4, 1962, YCAL, Box 14.

  Aldo Buzzi was passing through: AB was depressed over financial difficulties, and ST arranged to give him money through Billy Wilder, who pretended to hire AB for a film consultation, after which he paid him with ST’s money. Correspondence concerning Wilder’s acting as intermediary in passing funds for the next several years is in YCAL, Box 15, Folder “Correspondence 1965.”

  He did not take her to the dinner party: ST, desk diary, 1962, YCAL, Box 3.

  “on a stand-by basis”: SS, diary, containing a long letter to “Dear Saul” written on January 5, 1971, when she was recapitulating their previous decade together and apart. YCAL, Box 108.

  He told her she could start: ST, datebook, “Gigi Schule,” February 12, 1962, YCAL, Box 3.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: BOREDOM TELLS ME SOMETHING

  “I get slightly bored”: Transcript from a German TV show with no other identification except the broadcast year, 1968, YCAL, Box 100.

  Eventually she wound her way: SS, “My Life in Postcards,” YCAL, Box 110.

  When it was first offered: President Douglas M. Knight to ST, January 22, 1962, YCAL, Box 14.

  “curious about the process”: Post-Crescent, June 8, 1962, partial clipping with a photo showing ST laughing, YCAL, Box 14.

  “artists of gesture”: ST, unedited typescript of interview with Meg Perlman, n.d., no provenance given, YCAL, Box 32.

  Among his old friends: Richard Lindner and Isamu Noguchi were old friends with whom ST could talk about art, but Lindner had moved back to Germany and Noguchi was in Japan more than in New York.

  “girls, all are timorous”: ST to AB, January 10, 1963, SSF. Most likely he was referring to Mary Frank, whom he greatly admired; Joan Mitchell, whose raucous lifestyle intrigued him as much as her painting; and Helen Frankenthaler, who became entwined in his thinking with her then husband, Motherwell.

  Their closeness deepened: Correspondence between SS and Harriet Vicente and between Esteban Vicente and ST is scattered throughout YCAL Boxes 108 through 111. On Dec. 28, 1970, YCAL, Box 108, “The Vicentes” sent a card saying that although they never see SS anymore, they miss her and wish her a happy 1971. This and the rest of their correspondence indicates that they were aware of the ups and downs in the SS-ST relationship.

  A decade later, in the 1970s: ST, interview with Meg Perlman, YCAL, Box 32.

  Steinberg had a more formal relationship with Miró: There are several letters from Van Velde in YCAL, but the correspondence with Hélion and Miró is more extensive and more likely to be useful to art historians and biographers of the two painters.

  “He is perhaps the only friend”: ST to AB, January 10, 1963, SSF. ST recommended two of HR’s books for AB to read: The Tradition of the New and a biography of Arshile Gorky.

  “a writer of pictures”: WMAA, p. 10.

  “Irish rabbis”: May Natalie Taback Rosenberg to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests 1958, YCAL, Box 8.

  “suddenly trapped in the banality”: Leo Steinberg, “Remembering Saul Steinberg,” memorial service, November 1, 1999; Leo Steinberg, interview, October 31, 2007: “Whenever Saul came to visit me, he would always tell the doorman to announce him as my cousin.” Unless noted otherwise, quotes that follow are from this interview.

  Leo found it particularly grating: Argawal, “ST’s Treatment of the Theme of the Artist,” ST said, “I am more a writer than an artist. I have all the elements of a writer. I am most like Joyce or Nabokov.”

  When Saul did not reply: In an interview with Grace Glueck, Art in America, November–December 1970, pp. 110–17, ST said, “They help me avoid the narcissistic pleasure of hand.”

  Saul replied that even telling that much: S:I, pp. 216–19, contains reproductions plus a listing of some of the books in ST’s personal library.

  They had known each other casually: James Atlas, in Saul Bellow: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2000), p. 141, dates the friendship to Bellow’s Guggenheim Fellowship year in Paris in 1948. Although it is possible that the friendship began then, I found no reference to Bellow in ST’s YCAL papers until several years later, in the 1950s.

  “something of a relative to him”: Saul Bellow, “Saul Steinberg,” Republic of Letters no. 7 (1999).

  “discoveries, small epiphanies”: ST, diary, Sunday, May 26, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  Among Steinberg’s archives, various drafts: Among them are “Saul Bellow Draft, pp. 11 & 12,” and “Saul Bellow Revised Article, pp. 19 & 22,” both YCAL, Box 22. In YCAL, Box 75, in a letter dated December 28, 1982, Bellow discusses the differences between ST’s Romanian childhood and his in Montreal. Also YCAL, Box 75, on February 4, 1983, Bellow sent ST a journal-ledger in which he wrote a story in longhand titled “Talking Out of Turn.”

  Shortly after the great success of Lolita: Smith, S:I, posits that Figure 60, p. 60, from sketchbook 2954, YCAL, of a demon holding a small girl on his lap, may have been inspired by conversations about Lolita, which was published a year later. In the novel, Humbert Humbert asks, “Is ‘mask’ the keyword?”

  “ripe with symbolism”: Stacy Schiff, Véra: (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 198, quoting from an interview with ST, January 17, 1996.

  the text that resonated most strongly: Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol (New York: New Directions, 1959; corrected edition, 1961). ST was also intrigued by Lolita, which he puzzled over and used frequently in conversations to illustrate various points he wished to make, but he never listed it among his favorites.

  The story was especially resonant: Tape transcription, “Side B #28404,” p. 17A, SSF, published as “The Artist Speaks,” Art in America, November-December 1970, pp. 110–17. A particularly striking example comes from a 1970 interview with Grace Glueck, in which Steinberg described Giacometti and Cézanne as having a “recognizable aroma.” He admired Bonnard and spoke of looking at his paintings in museums, when he could sometimes “sniff” their aroma: “But it’s not that I see it directly and recognize it as Bonnard’s—it’s something I call aroma, the smell of souvlaki in
the streets of Athens, smell this combination of onion and cabbage and roses.” As a nonclinician, I am reluctant to describe this as synesthesia, that is, the neurological condition in which a stimulus to one of the senses creates a response to one or more other senses, so I merely call attention to the concept and leave the neurological research to other scholars.

  “version of the nose problem”: ST, “The Nose Problem,” Location (Spring 1963): 37.

  “She left a very good taste”: Carol Strickland, “Betty Parsons’s Two Lives: She Was an Artist, Too,” New York Times, June 28, 1992.

  “surrounded by [Armenian] noses”: Lica Roman to ST, July 26, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 6: “In Cachan there is a neighborhood made up only of charming Armenians, and a painter among them.”

  “slimy, creeping, furtive things”: Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol, pp. 5, 3.

  “could raise unexpected questions”: Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 511–12.

  “sadness or despair”: ST to AB, June 16, 1962, SSF.

  “Work derives from work”: From the German TV interview quoted in n.1 unidentified typescript, YCAL, Box 100.

  “to get her out of granny dresses”: HS, interview, October 24, 2007. The remark was echoed in much the same words in interviews with Dore Ashton, Vita Peterson, and Ruth Nivola. It can be found in undated correspondence between HS and May Tabak Rosenberg, HR/Getty, and in SS’s diary writings, YCAL, Boxes 100, 105, and 110.

  Aldo needed money to pay: ST to AB, June 26, 1962, SSF, where ST says he does not know what to do to console AB. He also asks if AB had been able to sort out “the Spanish girl.” PC (undated comment on the mss.) stated that one of Bianca’s daughters confirmed that her father “definitely helped support them.”

  Also, Ada chose the moment: Ada to ST, undated letters YCAL; ST to AB, June 26 and August 3, 1962, in which he chafes at his inability to persuade Ada to explain her ongoing difficulties with legal procedures that may or may not involve her.

  Dino De Laurentiis had wanted to work: ST to AB, August 3 and 27, 1962, SSF.

  It was never realized: ST to AB, August 27, 1962, SSF. Specific information about the project is not known.

  Aldo and Bianca were his guests: Information that follows is from ST, 1962 datebook, YCAL, Box 3.

  One of his most pleasurable meetings: Two letters from ST to Nicola Chiaromonte, dated June 10, 1964, and February 1, 1967, discuss terms and condition; Nicola Chiaromonte Papers, General Mss. 113, Beinecke Library, Yale University.

  On October 1 Steinberg flew to Tel Aviv: ST to AB, August 27, 1962.

  “the poetic, romantic”: ST to AB, October 30, 1962, SSF.

  “surrounded by Jewish faces”: HS, interview, September 9, 2007; ST to HS, n.d., AAA.

  whenever a Jewish group: One example among many is seen in correspondence with the Trumbull, Connecticut, Congregation B’nai Torah, which asked ST to contribute to their annual art exhibit, February 15, 1964, YCAL, Box 17. He sent a drawing and continued to do so for many years afterward.

  he always fasted on Yom Kippur: HS, interviews, 2007; AB, interview, June 19, 2007. There are also many brief references to fasting in ST’s diary jottings in YCAL, Boxes 75 and 95, and occasional allusions in his letters to AB.

  “work on command”: ST to AB, October 30, 1962, SSF.

  “in a comic way”: ST to AB, January 10, 1963.

  “This is a sad but very human story”: Unattributed typescript, YCAL, Box 17, Folder “Correspondence 1963.” Internal evidence suggests that ST wrote it, alone or in collaboration with SS, who was a skilled typist. ST was in the habit of rereading Finnegans Wake both for pleasure and for inspiration, and he wrote to AB that it took him years before he truly understood it.

  “random biographies of obscure people”: ST to AB, January 10 and April 25, 1963. Dore Ashton, interview, February 24, 2010, said ST presented this document to her as an authentic diary. She studied it intently before concluding that there was “something slightly off about it,” and then ST laughed and confessed that he had made it. See also S:I, p. 129, fig. 30.

  “sadder still”: ST to AB, March 4, 1962.

  Gigi told him she wanted to go: SS, diary, YCAL, Box 110.

  “cubist collages”: ST to AB, June 17 and July 20, 1963, SSF.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE TERRIBLE CURSE OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF FAME

  “Impossible to recount things”: ST to AB, February 19, 1964.

  “I’m not working”: ST to AB, June 17, 1963.

  “absolute happiness”: ST to AB, July 20, 1963.

  And he did something else he disliked: SS, “My Life in Postcards,” YCAL, Box 110.

  Shortly after, he learned that: Gray & Gray, CPAs, to ST, July 16, 1963, YCAL, Box 17.

  By the autumn, his money worries: TNY, May 25 and October 12, 1963.

  Steinberg was further delighted: Herbert Mitgang to ST, August 20, 1962, YCAL, Box 17. A year later ST was still in correspondence with Mitgang, trying to satisfy his request for a drawing; ST, “List of things to do,” YCAL, Box 17, Folder “Correspondence 1963.”

  Life and Time had infringed: Alexander Lindey to ST, September 23, 1963.

  “I don’t quite belong in the art”: Quoted in WMAA, p. 10; on p. 13, Rosenberg comments that “the advantage of being a borderline artist is that it allows the decision to be put off indefinitely.”

  He believed such honors: Jean Stein (vanden Heuvel), “From the Hand and Mouth of Steinberg,” Life, December 10, 1965, p. 60. See also WMAA, p. 29: “This monumentalization of people, this freezing of life, is the terrible curse of consciousness of fame.”

  To accept would have meant: Harold C. Schonberg, “Artist Behind the Steinbergian Mask,” New York Times, November 13, 1966, pp. 48–51, 162–69.

  “another glossy portrait”: Editor, Celebrity Register, to ST, n.d., YCAL, Box 17, Folder “Correspondence, 1963.” The photo used in the first issue was a publicity shot taken by a professional photographer, and ST did not send the informal one the editor requested.

  “strange, silent world”: Alexey Brodovitch, Portfolio no. 1 (Winter 1950). The magazine featured a brief identification of seven full pages of ST’s cartoons.

  “a dialogue between a No. 5”: Stein, “A Cartoonist Talks About Himself.” The quotations here are taken from Stein’s “Notes on an interview with ST,” YCAL, Box 38. They do not appear in the published version of the article in Life, published on December 10, 1965.

  “obsessed with the question mark”: Jean Stein (vanden Heuvel), “Notes on an interview with Saul Steinberg,” typescript, YCAL, Box 38. There are several edited versions of her interviews and conversations with ST in YCAL, Box 69; internal evidence suggests they were conducted throughout 1965.

  He depicted it lying in bed: The 5 and the question mark in bed appeared originally in Du Atlantis 26 (August 19, 1960): 602 and is reproduced in S:I, p. 153; the 5 as a tuba is in Smith, Steinberg at The New Yorker, p. 117; the 5 as a cupboard is a TNY cover, July 18, 1970.

  “so simple—I even give hints”: Glueck, “The Artist Speaks,” p. 112.

  “Oh, that’s easy”: From the unedited transcript of Glueck’s interview for “The Artist Speaks”; Anne Hollander, interview, December 5, 2009. ST said much the same about the number 4 in a conversation with Ann Birstein, who asked about his July 5, 1969, TNY cover, in which a 4 is shooting skyward from a firecracker. When she asked, “What’s going on here?” he replied, “Oh, Ann, you can never trust a 4”; Ann Birstein, interview, December 10, 2009.

  “a problem, a weakness”: Stein, “Notes on an interview with Saul Steinberg,” YCAL, Box 38.

  “the serious core”: Smith, “Thought and Spoken,” Steinberg at The New Yorker, p. 100.

  Much of the fan mail: Typical is a letter from the writer Judith Thurman, signed as Judith Ann Thurman, a high school senior in Flushing, New York, YCAL, Box 17.

  One group thought it was: YCAL, Box 17, folder of fan mai
l for 1963.

  “make people jittery”: Glueck, unedited transcript of interview, pp. 110–17.

  “get a gig for a workshop”: Lee Hall, Elaine & Bill: Portrait of a Marriage (New York: Cooper Square, 1993), p. 235.

  “Call Elaine about museum”: Information that follows is from this list, YCAL, Box 17.

  “a fresh eye”: Glueck, unedited transcript of interview.

  He donated drawings as well as money: Evidence can be found throughout his YCAL archives, but in this instance I cite YCAL, Box 17, for his activity in 1963, before and after the Kennedy assassination.

  He wanted to talk about this: HS to ST, October 8, 1963, YCAL, microfilm letters.

  He accomplished everything he wanted to do: Itinerary, YCAL, Box 3, Folder 1964–65.

  “mild pornography”: HS to ST, December 31, 1963, YCAL, microfilm letters.

  She joked that she would steal: HS to ST, May 1964, YCAL, microfilm letters. She was asking if he wanted her to keep looking, as she had not yet found one she thought suitable.

  In a gossipy letter to Saul: HS to ST, July 9 [1964], YCAL, microfilm letters, reel 144–45.

  In this instance, she hoped it would lessen: HS to ST, December 31, 1963, YCAL, microfilm letters.

  On the spur of the moment: The itinerary that follows is from YCAL, Box 3, Folder 1964–65.

  They inspired him to visit: Angelini was in charge of the UNESCO restoration of a World Heritage site. ST speaks of “several visits” to Ethopia in Glueck, unedited transcript of interview. He writes of the first in the itinerary in YCAL, Box 3, and of the second in a letter to AB, March 28, 1970, SSF, where he wrote that the second visit with Angelini to Lalibela “was excellent and leaves a fine memory.” He repeated that it was “especially beautiful for its location, the magical plateau.”

  “a terrific plateau”: Glueck, unedited transcript of interview.

  He spent the next day: ST, 1964 datebook, YCAL, Box 3.

  “I’m still confused”: ST to AB, February 19, 1964.

  He made another list: List on the back of a bill from Alexander Lindey, January 31, 1964, YCAL, Box 17.