Saul Steinberg

Saul Steinberg – Architecture studies in Milan; first attempts as draughtsman

Saul Steinberg was born on 15 June 1914 in Râmnicu Sărat in Romania. His father Moritz Steinberg ran a small printers and bookbinders in Bucharest where he also sold gift boxes. The boxes were decorated with small pictures which served the young Saul as inspiration for later artistic work. His broad interests were not only limited to the fine arts and music, but also the classical disciplines of philosophy, Latin and Greek. Painful experiences at the time, however, included the widespread antisemitism in Romania which accompanied him his whole life and finally led him to Italy where he was able to study architecture, which had been denied him in Bucharest due to his Jewish origins. Whilst studying, he began drawing and sold his early work to the humorous weekly paper Bertoldo – its editor-in-chief at the time was Giovannino Guareschi, the creator of the world-famous stories about Don Camillo and Peppone. Saul Steinberg never worked as an architect. 

Emigration to the USA; successful activity for the New Yorker

Saul Steinberg was forced to give up his activities in Italy because of the strengthening Fascism and after temporary internment by the Italian police, emigrated to the USA. He soon made his name in New York with cover designs for various magazines, including the New Yorker. The magazine’s editor, Harold Ross, was so taken with Steinberg’s work that he mediated the artist numerous further contracts. Steinberg also made the acquaintance of a fellow Romanian artist, Hedda Sterne, whom he married in 1994. The marriage remained childless, and the couple separated amicably in 1960. As draughtsman for the US government, he visited China, India, North Africa and Italy during the war years, and the drawings made during this time with impressions from these countries were also published in the New Yorker and won great acclaim. After the war, Saul Steinberg and his wife cultivated lively contact with many artist personalities in the city. 

A versatile artist with a perceptive view of America

Saul Steinberg drove his career in a diverse manner: He worked as a textile designer, a gallery manager, commercial artist, and stage set designer – almost always with success. In doing so, he was reminded of his early architecture studies and used his knowledge in the elaboration of his drawings. Time and again he humorously addressed the society of his adopted country, the USA – he illustrated the famous American way of life with great sympathy and love, but by no means without well-founded criticism. Steinberg anticipated the Pop Art that was soon to begin with some of his work. For his much-celebrated collage, The Americans, for example, which he presented to the 1958 World’s Fair, he inserted comics from Sunday Newspapers. In later years, Saul Steinberg’s imagery became darker, depicting America’s metropoles as fearsome, impenetrable mazes and interpreting the iconic children’s character Mickey Mouse as a booted terrorist. 

Saul Steinberg died in New York on 12 May 1999.