Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

From National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair, the definitive biography of Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorker's most iconic artists.



The issue date was March 29, 1976. The New Yorker cost 75 cents. And on the cover unfolded Saul Steinberg's vision of the world: New York City, the Hudson River, and then...well, it's really just a bunch of stuff you needn't concern yourself with. Steinberg's brilliant depiction of the world according to self-satisfied New Yorkers placed him squarely in the pantheon of the magazine's--and the era's--most celebrated artists.

But if you look beyond the searing wit and stunning artistry, you'll find one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. Born in Romania, Steinberg was educated in Milan and was already famous for his satirical drawings when World War II forced him to immigrate to the United States. On a single day, Steinberg became a US citizen, a commissioned officer in the US Navy, and a member of the OSS, assigned to spy in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the war ended, he returned to America and to his art. He quickly gained entree into influential circles that included Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Willem de Kooning, and Le Corbusier. His wife was the artist Hedda Sterne, from whom he separated in 1960 but never divorced and with whom he remained in daily contact for the rest of his life. This conveniently freed him up to amass a coterie of young mistresses and lovers. But his truly great love was the United States, where he traveled extensively by bus, train, and car, drawing, observing, and writing.

His body of work is staggering and influential in ways we may not yet even be able to fully grasp, quite possibly because there has not been a full-scale biography of him until now. Deirdre Bair had access to 177 boxes of documents and more than 400 drawings. In addition, she conducted several hundred personal interviews. Steinberg's curious talent for creating myths about himself did not make her job an easy one, but the result is a stunning achievement to admire and enjoy.

Genres: Art, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Art History

752 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Deirdre Bair received the National Book Award for Samuel Beckett: A Biography. Her biographies of Simone de Beauvoir and Carl Jung were finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Simone de Beauvoir biography was chosen by The New York Times as a Best Book of the Year. Her biographies of Anaïs Nin and Saul Steinberg were both New York Times Notable Books.

Reviews

[Sarah Booth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I thought this book 4 stars sometimes 2. It’s fascinating and depressing and enlightening all at once. Steinberg was a genius and a flawed human being as all human beings are. He put out an incredible body of work despite the chaos in his life and depression. The book doesn’t really tell you where his particular brand of genius came from specifically as Steinberg was very private about this and his life, but fills you in on the people and events in his life and some of what he was reading that give you many of the elements that contributed to it. Reading about the life and the person of someone you admire is tough because they are human and their life is often at odds with their genius. Those of us who are able to produce art, beauty or some other product that communicates to humanity do so despite the faults and shortcomings of being human; rising above the chaos of human life to create something is the most impressive of all. With all Steinberg’s sleeping around and dinner parties it’s amazing the amount of work he did. His start in life was a life long challenge to him and he never got over being Romanian and what that meant to him as a Jew being persecuted for merely existing. What an incredibly horrid way to have had to live growing up, it’s sort of surprising that he maintained so much humor and whimsy!
His mother was an over bearing, complaining battle ax and his father cowed by her and this may be what colours much of his relationship with women during his life, he goes through them like books and at the same time surprisingly loyal. He was an enigma. He produced such remarkable art that left him at odds with being classified as an artist. He was primarily a cartoonist to many, but that moniker limits his place among painters and other two dimensional artists where he also belonged as well; his work transcended category.

[Kate]

Fascinating biography, but even more fascinating as a chronology of books that Steinberg read and that influenced him (great reading suggestions here! if only everyone read so widely) and as the story of Steinberg's women--Ada, who supported him with sex and cash; Hedda, who supported him with maternal energy and cash; and Sigrid, who supported him as someone he could alternately control, fund, look down on, love, have sex with, and ultimately string along for years until her untimely death. It would be facile to blame Steinberg for his philandering and general horrendous treatment of women, both as colleagues and as lovers, but damn, son. I've been reading a lot of artists' biographies lately because I'm curious to know what the narrative of the woman in an artist's life story is (woman as artist, woman as woman-of-artist), and I found it disconcerting to read about how thoroughly Steinberg used the people around him.

Still, the man made a niche for himself as a particular kind of genius, a kind that maybe began and ended with him. I'm pissed as hell that I missed his show at the Adam Baumgold gallery, because seeing reproductions of his work is a poor substitute for seeing it in person. Oh, one more thing, I thought it was interesting that publishers kept paying him to put together books but they rarely sold more than 10,000 copies. Think of all the Saul Steinberg books that have been pulped in our lifetime!

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saul Steinberg....
His drawings are deep but not disturbing.
This biography is logically-structured
and yet I found it unremarkable...
like a bicycle that works but
that nobody would ever think of stealing.

[Elsie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eager to learn more about Saul Steinberg and his wonderful art, I picked up this book. It certainly is comprehensive, documenting almost every breath he took for all of his 80 some years. There is much to recommend it. The author had full access to all of Steinberg's exhaustive archives and papers. Better editing, tightening the prose and eliminating the repetitions would have been welcome.

Steinberg led a complicated life and the author did a good job at sorting out all of the pieces. He was a hated Jew in Romania, as a child. He was a gifted architecture student and cartoonist in Italy where he escaped as a young man. He never lost his affection for Italy even after they also rejected him for his Jewishness and forced to him to flee first to Santo Domingo and then to the United States. He endured a love/hate relationship with the U.S. for the rest of his life, fleeing often but always returning.

In this book you will learn about every aspect of his career, with descriptions of many of his works of art, books and commercial commissions. You will also learn too much(for me) about his extensive relationships with women, all of which were tortured. He married once. These parts of the book I learned to skim and I felt the extensive treatment of them detracted from the book. They certainly didn't contribute to an understanding of his art.

This is a book that chronicles the life of a extremely troubled, sad man who achieved great commercial, artistic and financial success, but, because he was never able to overcome his troubled psyche, he never found joy in it.

[David Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve long been drawn to Steinberg’s renderings (“high IQ humor,” it’s been said). Witty, arch, observant and perceptive, his art is immediately recognizable and quite memorable. With the bare minimum — an unerring line — he captures rare, isolated moments. Steinberg was a restless soul, ever on the move, eventually becoming a cranky, discontented misanthrope. Alas, there’s little Bair can do to redeem much of his behavior over the years. The book is rather long and dry. Suggest you pursue Steinberg’s “The Labyrinth” also.

[Dave Pescod · Rating 2.25 out of 5]

Bair has been obsessive, and maybe that’s necessary, but where was the editor? I’ve always admired Steinberg’s work for its succinct, cutting edge, but this book is like an endless merchandising mausoleum. It is sad, but accurate, as we watch Steinberg get lost, only to end up speaking in his native tongue and still seeking a meaning. There are some excellent moments in the 600 + pages but please don’t let Bair write the musical.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steinberg is my favorite cartoonist artist. His work is so much more than a "cartoon". This is the first time I read any biography work on his life. The book gave me a much better understanding of his work and the messages in his deceptively simple, ink drawn images.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, this book is so long - it could have used a good (better) editor. We did get it - Steinberg knew every artist of note, and many authors too. But why do we have to hear in detail about every dinner party? On the other hand, Steinberg is an important and fabulous artist, born Jewish in Romania during WWI he never really "recovered" from the experience of being a Romanian Jew. Though Bair doesn't specify acts of anti-semitism experienced directly by Steinberg, the whole country and society was so anti-semitic that its influence on his life and thinking was unavoidable. The story of Steinberg's relationships with women, and his inability to be faithful or supportive (an understatement) to the two most important women in his life is troubling and sad. He was a great friend to many - measured in part by the large number of people he supported financially - but that also led him to worry about money constantly and (maybe) subvert his art in his need to make money. SO - very interesting subject, fascinating life (he knew everybody) but too much detail - and then oddly no mention of how his family survived WW II as Jews in Romania, which they did do.

[Douglas Florian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been a total Steinberg fan in high school, I looked forward to reading this. These 600 pages flew by, as Steinberg's life was rife with incident and notoriety. I was amazed at the depth of research Bair did, delving into every event of an eventful life, such as trekking with wife Hedda Stern to Utopia Parkway in Queens to visit Joseph Cornell. She also explored the psyche inside the rabbit's head, as Steinberg often depicted himself. It altered my perception of the man, but not of his art. The only element lacking in the book was the art itself, with very few illustrations. Perhaps this was due to restrictions made by the estate.
I thought the jacket design was clever, sandwiching a photo of a masked Steinberg between a red horizon and blue sky, as Steinberg himself would often do in his landscapes.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful and thorough biography of an under-appreciated artist. I grew up seeing and often saving Steinberg cartoons in The New Yorker, and over the years have accumulated several of his books and catalogues. In college, I had his poster from Maeght in the 1960s. But I knew nothing about the artist whose drawings I admired.

This book gives a complete history of Saul Steinberg's complicated and often sad life. It seems that he knew everyone and had an impact on many. He was kind and generous almost to a fault. He was more than an artist and he was more than a writer.

Thank you, Deidre Bair, for revealing this important person.

[Joe Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing biography by National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair. She shows us the key role Saul Steinberg played in 20th century American art. The story behind the man who did the legendary view of America from Ninth Ave. cover of the New Yorker in 1976. Steinberg was a 'pop' artist long before Warhol & the list of people he knew from the art, film & literary worlds is awesome. Book is beautifully designed too - a strong argument for the book as physical object.

[Ally Bolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bair is an excellent biographer. I am going to read her Beckett biography as soon as I can lay hands on it. Saul Steinberg was an amazing artist, a fascinating character, and a bit of a jerk. It is always tricky to read a biography about someone you admire. Despite the fact that he was pretty horrible to women and a neurotic mess, I will always appreciate his whimsical and erudite view of the world.

[Bill Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Saul Steinberg as a kid in the sixties, but I didn't know much about his personal life. This book was quite a revelation in examining his many fabricated biographies and his lusty sexual appetites. In all I got the impression that fame and fortune never made him a happy man. Despite that, this book did examine how he worked (which seemed to be constantly), what his influences or interests were in relation to his art and his place in the art world of the time. A very interesting book.

[Lynn Kearney · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 This is a superb biography of the greatest of The New Yorker cartoonists. It made me aware of how much else he was and how much else he did.

[Karol M · Rating 4 out of 5]

He was a complicated guy, not the nicest toward women. You do get the feel of his drive, his passion for drawing, and his intense loneliness that seemed to plague him most of his adult life.

[Bill Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steinberg is a marvelous artist. As a person, he is somewhat elusive when he is not being opaque.