Saul Steinberg

By:Posirca Gina

Saul Steinberg was born in Râmnicu Sărat, Buzau, Romania. He studied philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest, then later enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano, studying architecture and graduating in 1940.

Saul Steinberg wearing one of his masks, c. 1961. Photo by Inge Morath.

Saul Steinberg . In View of the World from 9th Avenue, his famous 1976 New Yorker cover, a map delineates not real space but the

mental geography of Manhattanites.

In other Steinbergian transitions, fingerprints become mug shots or landscapes;

Words, numbers, and punctuation marks come to life as messengers of doubt, fear, or

exuberance;

Sheet music lines glide into violin strings, record grooves, the grain of a wood table, and

the smile of a cat.Ink on music paper, 14 1/4 x 20 1/8".

Through such shifts of meaning from one passage to the next, Steinberg's line comments on its own transformative nature. In a deceptively simple 1948 drawing, an artist (Steinberg himself) traces a large spiral. But as the spiral moves downward, it metamorphoses into a left foot, then a right foot, then the profile of a body, until finally reaching the hand holding the pen that draws the line.

Main Street--Small Town, section of The Americans mural,American Pavilion, Brussels World's Fair, 1958.

Cities, 1974.Originally published in The New Yorker, July 22, 1974.

Paris is reduced to the flowery curves of an Art Nouveau Métro station and triangular-plan buildings that mark out wishfully broadened and empty vistas. With no cars in sight and pedestrians confined to the sidewalks, Steinberg’s Paris emerges as an idealized city seen through its urban architectural styles. Style and content are coincident in Las Vegas, crayoned in a casino’s garish hues and frenetic barrage of forms. The gambling woman, nearly all head and pocketbook, hits the jackpot at a slot machine. Her prize, however, is not money or chips but geometric shapes, while the symbols on the machine are as juvenile as the dream of instant riches.

Paris Las Vegas

(Drawing Table "Apr 12"), 1969.Saul Steinberg

Saul Steinberg became famous in America.

We love how he expressed her opinions through art.