Saul
Steinberg,
the son of a printer, was
born in Romania
on 15th June 1914. He studied philosophy at Bucharest University and
architecture in Milan. While in Italy he
began producing cartoons for the satirical magazine, Bertoldo.
An opponent of Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini,
Steinberg fled to the United States in 1940.
Steinberg was sent back
to Europe but tried a second time and this led to him being deported
to the Dominican Republic. With the help of the magazine, the New
Yorker,
Steinberg was allowed to enter the United States in 1942. He joined
the US
Navy and
he saw action in North Africa and Italy.
During the war his cartoons were published in the New
Yorker.
Steinberg published his
first book All in Line (1945). The following year he covered the Nuremberg
War Trials for
the New
Yorker.
He also designed opera sets and was a Nasa artist at Cape Canaveral.
Books by Steinberg include
The Inspector (1973), Saul
Steinberg (1979), The Passport
(1979), Discovery of America (1995),
Masquerade (2000) and Reflection
and Shadows (2002). Saul
Steinberg died
on 12th May 1999.
Saul Steinberg, New
Yorker (1943)
(1)
Christopher Hawtree, The
Guardian, Saul Steinberg (14th May, 1999)
There is no pat way of
summing-up Steinberg. Diversely rooted, his work anticipated much
of what was to come in American art, such as the pop movement, and
stands above it all. He was described by Robert Hughes as having 'erected
standards of precision and graphic intelligence that had not been
imagined in American illustration before him.'
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