Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  One of the first was his adult “mania”: Information about stamp collecting is from ST to AB, May 1 and 19 and June 7, 1980, SSF.

  “thin blonde WASP women”: SS, diary, n.d., YCAL, Box 111; HS, in conversation with DB and Karen van Lengen, November 3, 2007; Karen van Lengen, interview, November 4, 2007.

  He was not embarrassed to tell Aldo: ST to AB, June 7 and 9, 1980, SSF.

  Perusing the postcards led him: YCAL, Box 100.

  “Majorcan Pearl, Josefine”: ST to AB, August 18, 1980. There he puts the name “Josepha” in parentheses after her name, and in correspondence and diary jottings in YCAL she is alternately called Josefine and Josefa, but her legal name was Josephine Buttles. For consistency, I call her “Josefine” as that is how he usually wrote it. She kept such order in his household that he boasted of how she “lined up the socks like soldiers.” When she became infirm and temporarily unable to work, ST supported her and her family with generous gifts on a regular basis.

  “as usual, full of qualms”: ST to AB, January 12, 1981, SSF.

  “love one another”: ST to AB, December 1, 1981, SSF.

  “symptoms similar to those”: ST to AB, April 4, 1981, SSF. He refers to Gaspare Guidice, Luigi Pirandello (Turin: UTET, 1963). Pirandello’s wife, Antonietta Portulano, had severe psychological problems that eventually resulted in her institutionalization. ST was referring to incidents of catatonic depression, obsessive jealousy, and sometimes violent physical behavior toward herself and others.

  As they exchanged greetings: Ellen Adler, interviews, May 4 and 5, 2010. Adler and Steinberg had been friends “sort of forever” because she was the daughter of Stella Adler and Harold Klurman, to whom ST was close for many years.

  “This is the tragedy”: On an undated file card in YCAL, Box 65, SS wrote: “Why (do you think) did I never have any friends?” She probably wrote it in 1986, because it is attached to an article on friendship from the New York Review of Books on which she has written “Jean de Florette. Depardieu,” referring to the recently released movie.

  Although Saul begged Sigrid: ST to AB, January 30, 1981, SSF.

  “drunk out of habit”: ST to AB, March 18, 1980, SSF.

  Among them were his dear friends: Karl Flinker to ST, June 9, 1981; Ray Eames, n.d. 1981; both in YCAL, Box 60.

  He planned to stay in Los Angeles: ST to AB, January 12, 1981, SSF. The incisione include engravings, etchings, drypoints, aquatints, etc.

  The only specialists whose names never appeared: In YCAL, Box 110, SS lists the doctors she was seeing from the early 1980s through 1992: Arnold Rosen (psychopharmacologist), Armin Wanner (psychotherapist), Melvin Horwith (endocrinologist), Daniel Shapiro (neurologist), Martin Carmins (neurosurgeon), David Hendell (dentist). She has crossed out the name of Dr. George Feldman, gynecologist, adding the comment “arrogant bastard.” In a separate note in YCAL, Box 111, she gives her first appointment with Dr. Wanner as October 30, 1984.

  He did, however, throw himself enthusiastically: “Two Women,” start date 1981, signature and publication dates 1993. One color black (copper-drypoint) etching, 53.3 x 50.8 cm. (21 x 20 in.), edition of 56 plus 10 AP. Other titles include images of “Gogol” (1–5), “Cedar Bar,” “North Dakota,” “Provincetown,” and “Legs.”

  “I do wish I had been more stoic”: Mark Rosenthal, Artists at Gemini G.E.L.: Celebrating the 25th Year (New York: Abrams, 1993); also Both Art and Life: Gemini G.E.L. at 25, exhibition catalogue for Newport Harbor Museum, Newport Beach, California, September 22–November 29, 1992.

  He ended negotiations: ST to AB, April 4 and 26, 1981, SSF. The exhibition was probably the one proposed for the Walker Art Center; the Japanese venue is unknown. Correspondence pertaining to the Walker is SSF.

  “due to his avarice”: ST to AB, April 5, 1982, SSF. Betty Parsons had been incapacitated by a stroke in November 1981, and she died on July 23, 1982. Arne Glimcher represented ST at Pace-Wildenstein Gallery and then SSF at Pace Gallery.

  a series of “small disasters”: ST to AB, July 8, 1981, SSF; Claire Nivola to DB, October 8, 2010. Nivola is not sure that her mother had a television set at that time, “but maybe so.”

  variations on the Japanese printmaker Hiroshige’s bridge: “Rain on Hiroshige Bridge,” TNY, November 2, 1981.

  They, like so much else: For a complete listing, see The Complete New Yorker, all issues and database on disks, 2005, published by TNY and distributed by Random House, New York.

  He stopped trying to analyze: Both Gordon Pulis and Anton van Dalen said in separate interviews that they cautiously questioned ST about the wisdom of making so many, but he waved them off and continued to do so.

  “intimate language”: ST to AB, September 29, 1981, SSF.

  “regression, childish rages”: ST to AB, August 24, 1981, SSF.

  Alexander Lindey, died that same year: Lindey’s widow, Ella, in a letter dated December 14, 1981, YCAL, Box 60, wrote that she had given ST’s files to Harold Daitch, the lawyer who represented her after her husband’s death, and suggested he do the same. ST declined and on June 8, 1982, ST asked Daitch to transfer the files to John C. Taylor at Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Taylor represented him until John Silberman became his lawyer and after ST’s death, an officer of SSF.

  Leo Steinberg sent a caustic: Leo Steinberg to ST, March 21, 1980, YCAL, Box 58.

  “total disregard for [his] gift”: Information that follows is from HS to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests early 1980s, YCAL, Box 58.

  When Steinberg moved to 75th Street: Muriel Oxenberg Murphy to ST, September 27, 1973, YCAL, Box 104.

  When Gaddis sent him work in progress: According to ST’s diary entry for January 21, 1991, YCAL, Box 76, the friendship became difficult over the ms. of Gaddis’s The Deposition, for which ST did not make the appropriate comments. ST told this to AB, who repeated it in an interview, June 2007, and he wrote it in a letter of August 18, 1983, to IF. In an interview, October 12, 2007, IF said ST told him, “I liked Gaddis as a person but I never finished one of his books.”

  He was largely responsible: ST to Saul Bellow, n.d., YCAL, Box 99. He asks Bellow to be the conominator, with Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme, William Gass, and John Barth as seconders.

  Steinberg was one of the background figures: Documentation pertaining to recommendations for the MacArthur “genius” award is in YCAL, Box 69.

  Steinberg and Saul Bellow had been good but casual friends: Saul Bellow to ST, April 25, 1980, YCAL, Box 33.

  Whether it was a philosophical/political essay: Two typescripts that have edits in Bellow’s and Steinberg’s handwriting are in YCAL, Box 22. Bellow sent a letter on February 4, 1983, YCAL, Box 75, along with a journal/ledger in which he wrote a story, “Talking Out of Turn,” in longhand. It must have been meant as a gift, for there are no marginal comments by ST. There is also an early typescript of a story called “Cousins” in YCAL, Box 75.

  “even if his style is naturally witty”: ST to AB, December 2, 1982, SSF.

  And yet when she was dying: PC, in notes to DB, 2011.

  “He could do this, just cut people”: IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

  Steinberg contacted Sandy Frazier: “Dating Your Mom,” TNY, July 3, 1978. ST cut the article out of the magazine and kept it in YCAL, Box 99.

  He did the same with Donald Barthelme: Information that follows is from Marion Barthelme, interview, May 18, 2008.

  he became a frequent dinner guest: ST liked Marion Barthelme so much that he created a special drawing to celebrate her wedding to Don. As of 2012, it is in her collection in Houston, Texas.

  He told the story of how Steinberg: HS told this same story in several 2007 interviews, always marveling at how “the dead, needleless, slightly off-center branches of the pine tree resembled a Steinberg.”

  He and Steinberg discovered so many parallels: Saul Steinberg with IF, Canal Street (New York: Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990).

  At the time she was w
orking: Information that follows is from Karen van Lengen, interview, November 4, 2007.

  So too were the few people: From interviews with HS, IF, Karen van Lengen, Dore Ashton, Ruth Nivola, Claire Nivola.

  Only once did Steinberg speak of it: Mimi Gross, interview, March 9, 2010.

  “Poor Sigrid,” Aldo said: AB, interviews, June 19, 2007, and July 27, 2008; AB to ST, April 29, 1981, YCAL, Box 60.

  CHAPTER FORTY: THE PASSION OF HIS LIFE

  “Saul truly loved her”: AB, interview, June 19, 2007.

  Perhaps Sigrid was not fated: AB to ST, April 29, 1981, YCAL, Box 60.

  These phases of flamboyant behavior: On a file card dated “May 3” in YCAL, Box 110, she wrote: “My recent hypo/maniac episode cost me,” followed by a list of purchases that totaled $14,300. Bills to ST charged by “Mrs. Steinberg” and signed by SS appear occasionally throughout YCAL, Boxes 108–115, which contain SS’s papers.

  Ruth and Tino Nivola invited her: The following account is from Dore Ashton, interviews, January 20, 2009, and February 24, 2010; Ruth Nivola, interviews, July 24 and September 22, 2007.

  “not all that bad”: SS collected articles about the Holocaust, particularly how the Nazis tortured Jews and how women were required to add “Sarah” to their given names and men “Israel.” She made a list of all the extermination camps and where they were located, and she collected articles about neo-Nazis and skinheads. She was also interested in the postwar rise of fascism in various countries, particularly Spain. All these articles are in YCAL, Box 110.

  “be with a Nazi’s daughter”: Interviews with HS, Ruth Nivola, Dore Ashton, Vita Peterson, Ellen Adler, and others.

  “he was very sweet to her”: Cornelia Foss, March 20, 2010. Ms. Foss and her late husband, the composer Lukas Foss, were often part of “the three couples”—the Fosses, ST and SS, and Muriel Murphy and William Gaddis—mainly in East Hampton.

  Hedda Sterne said it was more than that: HS, interviews and telephone conversations, 2007 and 2008.

  “Not bad, but fierce”: ST to AB, May 23, 1983, SSF.

  “The question is”: Numbers in ST’s handwriting, comment in SS’s, n.d., YCAL, Box 110. Unless noted otherwise, information that follows is from SS’s diary writings in YCAL Boxes 110, 111, 112, and 113.

  “terrible loneliness”: This phrase was used by Claire Nivola and Gus Kiley in interviews, July 2, 2008; AB, interview, June 19, 2007; HS, various interviews throughout 2007, and many others.

  “She had very few friends”: Mimi Gross, interview, March 9, 2010.

  “two people living together”: These quotations are comments from interviews with (among others) Ellen Adler, Dore Ashton, Aldo Buzzi, Cornelia Foss, IF, Mimi Gross, Ruth Nivola, Dana Roman, Hedda Sterne, and Karen van Lengen.

  Even though she enjoyed: She made a list of all the grudges she had against him, YCAL, Box 111: “It has become like living with Dana—you, being the spoiled brat—offended for my not pampering you more, looking for understanding everywhere else (consolation from Hedda, etc.) and me stuck and lonely, without friends, doing the dirty work.”

  “I’d rather be like Hedda”: SS, from her 47-page typed diary for 1981–82, YCAL, Box 111.

  She felt she was worthy: Richard Fadem, interview, March 2, 2010.

  What he did do was contact: David J. Shewitz of Shewitz and Rosenhouse, CPAs, to SS, May 9, 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

  He also agreed to let his lawyers make: Joseph S. Iseman and John C. Taylor III, from the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison, memorandum to ST, February 9, 1982. In this change, HS inherited one-third, his niece and nephew shared a second third, and SS was to receive the third portion. The change suggested (and accepted by ST) was that HS would receive the principal of the trust until her death, at which time it would be payable to Dana and Stéphane Roman, with the “only disadvantage” that they would not inherit until HS’s death. On August 4, 2010, HS celebrated her hundredth birthday; she died on April 8, 2011.

  “not even the next ten days”: SS, diary, 1981–82, YCAL, Box 111. I have also relied on SS’s correspondence with the Belgian photographer Pierre Cordier, whom ST befriended at the 1958 World’s Fair. Cordier and SS became close; copies of his extensive correspondence and photographs of SS are at SSF.

  She recalled how she and her father: SS to Pierre Cordier, March 24, 1982, SSF.

  Saul was worried about how the depth: ST to AB, September 27, 1982, SSF.

  “when she got horribly depressed”: Cornelia Foss, interview, March 20, 2010.

  “nobody can live like this”: The following information is from a typescript dated “Sunday, Feb. 9,” to which SS later added “Spaeth 1967,” YCAL, box unidentified, copy in SSF. The text is a conversation/exchange between SS and ST.

  Her “valium summer” began: SS, diary, writings beginning March 29 and ending sometime in mid- to late September 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

  “avoid the errors of the past”: ST to AB, July 20, 1983, SSF.

  “without drama”: ST to AB, July 12, 1983, SSF.

  He had been prompted to end: ST, diary, May 30, n.d. but internal evidence suggests he is writing in the early 1990s and reflecting back to the early 1980s, YCAL, Box 75.

  He preferred distance on his own terms: The following account is from SS, diary “Summer ’83,” August 6–10, YCAL, Box 111.

  Later he made a movie of her: There are many nude photos of SS in the YCAL boxes, most of them in Box 23. Most were taken by ST, but others were taken by Evelyn Hofer, and there are unidentified photographs in which SS sits on ST’s lap, nude, while he is fully clothed. Both stare intently and dispassionately at the camera.

  “nice weekend” together: ST to AB, August 10, 1983, SSF.

  On her next visit, he relented: The following account is from SS, diary “Summer ’83,” August 9, YCAL Box 111.

  He was confident that if things remained amicable: ST to AB, references in letters of July 12 and 20, 1983; further clarification from AB, interview, June 19, 2007.

  When he returned, the holiday season: IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

  “If I should die,” she began: SS to ST, December 2, 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

  “empty, boring”: SS to Pierre Cordier, postcard, October 24, 1984, SSF.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: “STEINBERGIAN”

  “A drawing from life reveals”: R & S, p. 72.

  “the racket, the hysteria”: ST to AB, January 16, 1984, SSF.

  “Bulletin: I stopped drinking”: ST to AB, dated by him as July 12, 1983, but internal evidence suggests September, SSF.

  He had checked himself into a Zen temple: ST to AB, dated by him as July 20, 1983, but internal evidence suggests September, SSF.

  To acquire knowledge through practice: YCAL, Box 69, contains addresses for the Zen Dharmacraft, Massachusetts; Samadhi, Vermont, Zen Center, New York; Zen Stitchery in Idyllwild, California. A letter from Paul Mocsanyi, October 28 (no year), tells him the best book for yoga is Yoga and Health by Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Maich. ST bought a copy.

  Usually pretending to be encapsulated: ST to AB, April 2, 1985, SSF.

  “I am an amazing sight”: ST to IF, August 18, 1983; ST to AB, July 20, 1983, SSF.

  He found such euphoria: ST, “The Bicycle as a Metaphor of America,” 2 pp. of handwritten notes, YCAL, Box 115. ST drew a bicycle for the cover of TNY, July 8, 1985, and later used it for the cover of his 1992 book, The Discovery of America.

  “inside with oneself”: ST, diary, n.d., but ca. 1993, YCAL, Box 48.

  “elective austerities”: S:I, p. 73.

  “only the pleasure of having won”: ST to IF, February 6, 1983; IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

  “film exposed sixty years ago”: YCAL, Sketchbook 3323; see also S:I, p. 241, n. 154.

  “a person of impulse”: IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

  He was one of the few trusted friends: ST, diary, YCAL, Box 75.

  “windowless studio”: ST to AB, May 31, 1982; ST, diary, Sunday
May 26, n.d. but probably 1983, YCAL, Box 75. ST continued to see Dine, either in Vermont or New York, and at the end of his life was distressed that Dine liked the reproductions done by Graphic de France, to which he strongly objected.

  “perhaps a bit too garishly”: ST to AB, May 9, 1982, SSF.

  Both books contained texts: Roland Barthes, All Except You, with drawings by Saul Steinberg; Repères, Editions d’Art, Galerie Maeght, s.a. 1983; Dal Vero.

  Steinberg and Barthes had known and respected: Steinberg later used variants of some of the drawings in The Discovery of America and Reflections and Shadows, but the book All Except You is relatively unknown in his canon. An unofficial English translation of Barthes’s text was made by William R. Olmstead, professor of humanities at Valparaiso University, who presented a copy to SSF in 2003. All references are from that work, with my gratitude to Professor Olmstead for permission to quote from it. Richard Howard, who is the official Barthes translator for Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, said in a telephone conversation, November 3, 2010, that he had no factual information about why Barthes’s essay was never translated or published in any form after the original appearance, but that he had “long believed both parties [Barthes and ST] had various dissatisfactions with it” and that “both nixed it.” He thinks that it is “a charming essay, worthy of Saul,” and he knew from personal experience that “Barthes was always interested in Steinberg’s work.”

  “a collection of drawings that were unique”: John Hollander, interview, October 2, 2007.

  His studio assistants remember: Anton van Dalen and Gordon Pulis were among the many observers of ST’s ruthlessless in evaluating his own work. ST told Claire Nivola how angry he was when he was at the Smithsonian and his house servant told him how neighbors went through the trash can in search of his discards. He said the same thing to HS, and many of his friends in New York knew how careful he was when putting out the trash on 75th Street.

  “certain parts”: He wrote about this in R & S, pp. 72ff.

  It was in Springs that: John Hollander, Blue Wine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). Comments here are taken from p. 71. There is another poem inspired by an ST drawing, “Ave Aut Vale” (untitled, p. 34, collection of the artist), which shows a man, woman, and young girl standing in a doorway. Hollander asked ST “whether this was a scene of arrival or departure; he replied that he didn’t know anything about the people in the drawing save that they were all dead”; John Hollander to DB, October 31, 2007.