Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY DOESN’T STOP

  “The fact that stuff gets printed”: ST to AB, April 29, 1964, SSF.

  “rediscovering Cubism”: For representative examples of drawings that came to fruition in the early 1970s, see WMAA, pp. 224–26.

  She tried to joke that the patch: HS to ST, April 3, 1964, YCAL, microfilm letters and Box 17; C. Bueno, accountant, to HS, March 19, 1964, noting that ST paid HS $300 per month. He was also transferring money into her account to pay the real estate taxes on her house, and he paid all their joint income taxes.

  Throughout the affairs: Richard Fadem, interview, March 2, 2010.

  “needed a lot of hand-holding”: Wendy Weil, interview, March 22, 2010.

  “vulnerable to the stupidity”: ST to AB, April 9, 1965, SSF.

  “amorous delights and suffering”: ST to AB, April 6, 1964. SSF.

  he kept a dream journal: ST, dream sequences, 9/17, 12/15, 12/16, in 1964 datebook, YCAL, Box 3.

  He transposed his next dream: American Council of Learned Societies, Newsletter, February 1964.

  “at a crossroads”: ST to AB, July 16, 1964, SSF.

  One of his honors came: Paul Rand to ST, January 28, 1964; Howard S. Weaver, acting secretary of Yale University, wrote to say that the Council of Residential College Masters had voted to offer a five-year appointment; YCAL, Box 17.

  He was flattered: James Laughlin to ST, January 2, 1964. YCAL, Box 17.

  Steinberg was invited to join: He contributed money, drawings, and the use of his name and was rewarded with an invitation to the 1965 inaugural activities; YCAL, Box 17.

  Jean Stein and William vanden Heuvel: The invitation is in YCAL, Box 17; Robert Kennedy to ST, February 2, 1965, YCAL, Box 15.

  He did all these things alone: ST used to joke that he could set up a mirror to be like a periscope and use it to look into Mimi Gross’s bedroom, on the fourth floor front of her parents’ house (now a museum); Mimi Gross, interview, March 9, 2010.

  “the Nivola family spectacle”: ST to AB, April 8, 1964, SSF.

  Ruth Nivola was one of a number of mothers: Ruth Nivola, interview, September 22, 2007; Dore Ashton, interview, February 24, 2010; letter from an unidentified woman in YCAL, Box 75, who objected to ST’s invitation to her fifteen-year-old daughter for a private lunch in Springs.

  He even had calling cards printed: These objects remain in the personal collection of Claire Nivola.

  “She is fifteen”: Dore Ashton, interviews, January 20, 2009, and February 24, 2010.

  “put such temptation”: Mary Carr to ST, on Mademoiselle stationery, December 1, 1966, YCAL, Box 16.

  He did, however, frighten Anna: Ricardo Aragno was the literature and culture correspondent for La Stampa. Information that follows is from an interview with Dr. Anna Aragno, December 19, 2007.

  The next day he drew her portrait: Because of the limitation on the number of images of ST’s art SSF permitted, I may not reproduce the “Portrait of Anna” here. In the December 19, 2007, interview, she said she was entirely unaware of ST’s relationship with SS until I told her of it. She also said, “There was something inappropriate about him. His behavior was a sort of façade, a mask. You never really touched him; it was all surface.”

  “smokey [Bear] hat”: ST, datebook, August 4, 1964, YCAL, Box 3. All information about the trip comes from this datebook, SS’s diary in Box 110, and ST to AB, August 27, 1964.

  Several decades later, when she stopped: Information that follows is from SS, “My Life and Travels in Post Cards, Part II, by Sigrid Savage,” YCAL, Box 112. Although this is a continuation of “My Life in Postcards,” she gave it a slightly different title in this continuation of her life with ST.

  “Tired now”: ST to AB, August 27, 1964, SSF.

  CHAPTER THIRTY: I HAVE TO MOVE

  “I have to move”: ST to AB, September 6, 1965, SSF.

  He did nothing about renewing his lease: NYU to ST, December 20, 1963; July 15, 1964; August 24, 1964; YCAL, Box 17.

  They flew home via Puerto Rico: ST, 1965 date book, YCAL, Box 3.

  Before they left, Steinberg had mailed: ST, January 1965, datebook, notation to complete the drawings he sent to Maeght on November 11, 1964, YCAL, Box 3; ST to Aimé Maeght, November 12, 1964, copy at SSF.

  It was quickly apparent: Quotes are from ST to Maeght, November 12, 1964. According to SSF, ST allegedly sent 33 photos but only 22 were used. SSF dates their beginning to 1959, with most of those published in 1961–62. The entire series can be viewed at http://www.magnumphotos.com by searching the terms “Inge Morath” and “Saul Steinberg.”

  Even there, progress was hampered: ST to Aimé Maeght, March 12, 1965, copy at SSF: “This has to be a very fine book.”

  he wanted Maeght to ask: ST to Aimé Maeght, September 13, 1965, SSF (my translation).

  “celebrities who wrote crap”: ST used the word conneries, which can be translated as stupidity or nonsense, but because it is not used in polite company, it usually deserves the harsher, slangier translation.

  Sartre and Nabokov both refused: Beckett sent a polite letter saying that he had no competence to interpret Steinberg’s work and could not risk serving badly an artist he much admired; Jacques Dupin to ST, January 3, 1966, YCAL, Box 15 (my translation).

  To soften the blow: ST to Aimé Maeght, October 6, 1965, copy in SSF (my translation); correspondence in YCAL, Box 15, between Lindey, Maeght, and Robert Delpire, who wanted to make a documentary film about ST. Maeght said he wanted to publish the book under his own name and refused Delpire’s offer to publish.

  In Paris he met Jean Folon: Correspondence between ST and Folon pertaining to this and other projects Folon wished to pursue is in YCAL, Boxes 8, 15, and 16, among others.

  whose writing he admired: Italo Calvino, “La Plume la Première Personne,” Derrière le Miroir no. 224 (May 1977).

  On an impulse, he flew: ST to Aimé Maeght, March 12, 1965, copy at SSF. ST wrote that he spoke to Hamish Hamilton in London and Harper in New York and both were interested, and he was sure that Rowohlt in Germany and Feltrinelli in Italy would also want the book.

  “milk the [paper’s] exchequer”: Michael Davie to ST, December 8, 1964, and February 26, 1965, YCAL, Box 15. One of Cynthia Nolan’s earliest letters to ST is dated August 1950, YCAL, Box 5.

  He was Gigi’s witness: SS to ST, February 20, 1965, YCAL, Box 109.

  Off he went to Florida: ST, 1965 datebook, YCAL, Box 3.

  It irritated him: Jeanne-Claude and Christo, interview, August 9, 2007.

  Steinberg liked even more: ST, notes from conversation with Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s biographer, Bert Chernow, n.d., YCAL, Box 123. Published in Chernow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, pp. 47–48.

  Priscilla Morgan usually had eight: Priscilla Morgan, interview, July 2008. At one of her dinners where ST was not the center of attention, he repeated a version—again to Jeanne-Claude and Christo—of what he had said in their home. Seated silently in an armchair in Morgan’s apartment, he said he might as well go home because “everyone is talking and no one is listening to me.”

  “more than enjoyable”: Jean Stein, interview, March 8, 2009.

  “Conversation seemed to make him awkward”: Bellow, remarks delivered at Steinberg’s memorial service, copy in SSF and also in James Atlas’s papers at the University of Chicago.

  For the next several months: ST liked the acerbic Spark so much that he called on her frequently when he was in Rome. She sent a telegram to ST, care of Maeght, on February 25, 1966, asking if he wanted to visit her at the Silvretta Hotel, Klosters, Switzerland; YCAL, Box 15.

  In short, he was out: Often, if the evening was particularly memorable, he also made a drawing and sent it to the hostess.

  She was so insistant that LSD: The first mention of mescaline is in June 1955, in ST, datebook, YCAL, Box 3. Smith, S:I, p. 240, n. 134, posits that ST might have received the drug from Henri Michaux, who was a proponent of mescaline. I found no direct evidenc
e to support this, nor did I find any concrete information about his supplier.

  “They wanted to see”: ST, typescript of interview with Adam Gopnik, filed as “Interview” in YCAL, Box 67. The conversation took place in 1993, and ST mistakenly said he took the LSD “in Connecticut.”

  “something very important”: ST to AB, July 12, 1965, SSF.

  “certain differences and suspicions”: ST to AB, September 6, 1965, SSF.

  Gigi had never liked Greenwich Village: ST, 1965 datebook, YCAL, Box 3; SS, “Synopsis: My Life in America,” entry for September 23, 1965, YCAL, Box 108.

  Most of her lovers still wanted: SS, correspondence in YCAL, Box 109.

  Bill de Kooning gave him: Appraisers for the Pace Gallery gave de Kooning’s drawing a value of $400,000 sometime in the 1980s; YCAL, Box 39.

  “well being doesn’t count”: ST to AB, October 6, 1965, SSF.

  “look around for something”: George Plimpton to ST, n.d., YCAL, Box 15. The Byron Gallery, New York, thanked him for providing “original work for a poster,” along with such artists as (among others) Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Richard Lindner, Louise Nevelson, and Andy Warhol; YCAL, Box 15.

  He did, however, manage to contribute: ST donated the drawing as a prize for a New Year’s Eve benefit for Chamber Music in the Circle, Bleecker Street, NY, YCAL, Box 15. Schneider’s letter is in YCAL, Box 61.

  Steinberg was never one to brood over: HS, interview, October 11, 2007: “I always had the urge to share with him anything I read that mattered to me. ST used to laugh and say I always had to give the citation for anyone I quoted.”

  Hedda always carried: The notebooks and individual sheets of paper from them are found throughout the YCAL boxes but are not otherwise identified.

  Dore Ashton was “shocked”: Dore Ashton, interviews, January 20, 2009, and February 22, 2010; Dore Ashton to ST, “Wednesday,” YCAL, Box 5.

  As he doodled: ST, 1965 datebook, YCAL, Box 3; ST, “Notes on Writing,” YCAL, Box 15.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: THE DESIRE FOR FAME

  “I was doing so well”: ST to AB, August 17, 1966, SSF.

  “camouflaged as a cartoon”: Stein, unedited transcript of interview.

  “a form of brooding”: Ibid. ST continued: The doodle “contains only a combination of reflexes, a combination of things that the hand knows, the brain knows, but it’s all half asleep and it’s mechanical.” He said doodling was responsible for what he called “mechanical drawings,” such as the one in The New World on p. 13, which he called “A man reasons. The man thinks.”

  “say something interesting”: ST, datebook, November 4 and 13, 1965, YCAL, Box 3.

  After this he wrote: ST, datebook, January 20 and 30, 1966, YCAL, Box 3.

  He had met Tillich: Invitations to meet Anshen in New York are in YCAL, Boxes 3 and 15; invitations for ST and SS to dine with Hannah Tillich in East Hampton begin in the autumn of 1965, shortly before Paul Tillich’s death, YCAL, Box 15.

  All were asked to write: This is a loose paraphrase of the jacket copy. All the contributors were men, but future contributors were to include Lillian Smith and Margaret Mead.

  Tillich was well suited: Paul Tillich, My Search for Absolutes, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, with drawings by Saul Steinberg (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967). The jacket copy describes Tillich and ST as “close friends.” It is true that they knew each other and had tremendous affinity and rapport, but it is probably an exaggeration to make the friendship any stronger than that. After Tillich’s death, ST continued to call on his widow, and he remained friendly with her and with Anshen for many years afterward.

  “this game of autobiography”: Stein, unedited transcript of interview.

  “in what might be called”: Anshen, “Prologue,” My Search for Absolutes, p. 20.

  “strong and penetrating”: Hannah Tillich to ST, October 9, 1966; Hannah Tillich, Christmas card to ST, n.d. 1966; both in YCAL, Box 16.

  When Anshen sent Steinberg a copy: Ruth Nanda Anshen to ST, September 5, 1967, YCAL, Box 16.

  “a great title which says nothing”: ST, The New World (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Jean Stein, undated edited version of 1966 interviews with ST, YCAL, Box 69.

  In preparation for the book’s launch: The interviews are collected as typescripts under the names of Jean Stein, Jean Stein vanden Heuvel, and Jean Vanden and are in YCAL, Boxes 15, 16, 38, and 69. In some of them, Harold Rosenberg is a participant and occasional interviewer. Portions of these interviews were published under the name Jean vanden Heuvel as “Straight from the Hand and Mouth of Steinberg.” Some of Rosenberg’s dialogues are in “Saul Steinberg’s Art World,” pp. 51–54, 67–68.

  Now he made the conscious decision: ST to AB, August 17, 1966, SSF.

  “the biography of a man”: Although the the book is unpaginated, ST worked from a paginated proof during this section of the interview and referred to this drawing as being on p. 93.

  In Steinberg’s translation: All quotations that follow, until noted otherwise, are from Stein, unedited transcript of interview, transcripts 10A and 10B, August 19, 1965, YCAL, Box 15.

  “some sort of idea”: Glueck, transcript of interview.

  When it appeared in The New Yorker: I refer here to the many letters scattered throughout the uncatalogued boxes of his archives.

  She was hurt: SS, diary, YCAL, Boxes 108 and 111.

  He went alone to Paris: ST to SS, February 23 and undated letters, 1966, YCAL, Box 109.

  “very hysterical”: SS to ST, “wed. 9” [ February 1966], YCAL, Box 15.

  All his friends were there: A copy of a partial list of guests he personally invited is in YCAL, Box 15. It lists Alain, Buzzi, Barbara (Chase Riboud), Sandy (Calder), (Robert) Doisneau, (Robert) Delpire, Folon, Hélion, Hayter, Ionesco, James Jones, Knoop, Lica, Matta, Rowohlt, Michéle Rosier, Man Ray, Geer van Velde, Zao, Soulages, Max, (Jean) Riopelle, “Stella,” and C. I. Roy. Véra Nabokov sent her regrets and her husband’s, saying that he had too much work to finish before going away for the summer. She expressed “enormous pleasure” that ST had flown overnight on March 12 to Montreux to see them. A copy of his bill from the Montreux-Palace Hotel and her letter are in YCAL, Box 15.

  “I never fitted”: SS, diary, 1987, YCAL, Box 111.

  Afterward, Saul went on alone: Travel receipts are in YCAL, Box 15.

  Sigrid was mostly on her own: On May 23, SS wrote to ST from Trier, calling her visit “a nightmare” and “brooding about what next”; YCAL, Box 15.

  “like an exam in a French Lycée”: ST to Aimé Maeght, August 5, 1966; ST to Aimé Maeght, November 15, 1966; copies of both in SSF. My translation, with assistance from Mary Lawrence Test, Myrna Bell Rochester, and Catherine Portuges.

  The medal was conferred: ST to Aimé Maeght, October 22, 1966, YCAL, Box 22. A reception was given for ST on September 29, 1966.

  “another medal of honor”: Vogue, January 1, 1967, p. 136.

  “in that state of trance”: ST to AB, October 23, 1966, SSF.

  “My fee today”: ST, telegram to “Mr. Adams,” director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, June 14, 1966, YCAL, Box 15.

  “I sold eighty pictures”: ST to Aimé Maeght, January 4, 1967, copy in SSF.

  “paternal satisfaction”: ST to AB, December 10 and December 30, 1967, SSF.

  “ready-made for a Saul Steinberg cartoon”: Time, April 15, 1966, p. 46.

  “an unsettling trip”: Pierre Schneider, “Steinberg at the Louvre: A Museum Tour,” Art in America, July/August, 1967; reprinted in part in Encounter 30, no. 3 (March 1968), 48–54.

  Many interviewers came from Europe: Some of the networks that filmed him include Raiuno (Italy), Suddeütscher Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk (Germany), Allan King Associates (England), and PBS and CBS (USA).

  In the United States, in the heyday: Stein, “Straight from the Hand and Mouth of Steinberg,” Vogue, January 1, 1967; Hilton Kramer, “The Comic Fantasies of Saul Steinberg,” New York Times, December 4, 1966; Rosenberg,
“Saul Steinberg’s Art World.”

  “the line philosopher-artist-cartoonist”: Mrs. Gerald A. (Edith) Kay to ST, Denver, n.d., YCAL, Box 16.

  The Romanian Socialist Republic: YCAL, Box 16. Although ST never joined SACO, he always gave permission for his drawings to be used whenever anyone with whom he served wanted to reproduce them in books or articles. Prominent among them was Admiral Milton E. Miles’s history-memoir, A Different Kind of War.

  He had never hidden his support for civil rights: The SLC drawing was exhibited at MoMA from October 31 to November 3, 1968, YCAL, Box 32; the CORE documents are in YCAL, Box 16. Another group to which he contributed was Artists for SEDF (Scholarship, Education, and Defense fund for Racial Equality); see Robert Rauschenberg to ST, March 1, 1967, YCAL, Box 16. Elodie and Robert Osborn invited him to contribute to send young French filmmakers led by Gerard Calisti to North Vietnam, YCAL, Box 16. A letter from C. Conrad Browne, YCAL, Box 68, thanked him for a contribution of $260 that “helped make possible the termination of charges against the six campers arrested in the 1963 North–South work camp incident.”

  When he ignored a letter from the Guggenheim Museum: Second Street Workshop Club to ST, n.d., YCAL, Box 16; initial Guggenheim invitation, January 27, 1967.

  “I go on working”: ST to AB, December 30, 1966, SSF.

  “Come see me:” ST to Aimé Maeght, January 4, 1967, copy in SSF.

  He was not as welcoming: SS, nine handwritten looseleaf pages, the first entry dated October 22, 1965, YCAL, Box 68.

  By February she was begging: SS to ST, “Feb 18” [1966], YCAL, Box 15; diary entries, YCAL, Boxes 99 and 111; SS to ST, February 8, 1965 to June 14, 1966, YCAL, Box 113.

  “It is a complex fate”: ST noted this in various YCAL boxes; in YCAL, Box 38, Charles Simic quoted it to him in regard to his own writing. The full quotation is from Henry James’s letter to Charles Eliot Norton, February 4, 1872: “It is a complex fate to be an American and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.”