Reflections and Shadows

by Saul Steinberg, Aldo Buzzi

We all grew up in Saul Steinberg’s America, a place he envisioned for us in his drawings and cartoons for The New Yorker—none more famous than his iconic image of a New Yorker’s view of the world. In this eccentric and unpredictable memoir, one of the twentieth century’s most intellectually nimble artists shares his view of the world, of America and his place in it.

A Romanian by birth, restless by inclination, Steinberg lived a peripatetic existence. In Reflections and Shadows, he introduces us to his family—his uncle Moritz, a sign painter, and his father (also Moritz), a bookbinder whose small factory produced cardboard boxes and ribbons for funeral wreaths. He tells us how he dodged the police in fascist Italy in 1940 and how he came to America, where he became a citizen, an officer in the U.S. Navy, and the foremost visionary satirist of his time.

No one has depicted America with all its strengths and foibles more enduringly than Saul Steinberg. In this playful meditation, based on a series of interviews with Aldo Buzzi that has never before been published in English, and interwoven with more than a dozen drawings, Steinberg delivers a laconic hymn to America: its baseball, its diners, and its exhibitionism. “It is stinginess,” Steinberg writes, speaking of his art and method, “that holds us back.” But he had none of that: the personality that emerges from these pages is capacious, acutely discriminating, full of serendipitous curiosities, and consistently engaging.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I had taken out of the library Steinberg's The Discovery of America, I also took out this small collection of short essays, based on tape-recorded interviews with Aldo Buzzi. I see it as a brief companion piece for looking at any of his dozen or so book collections of his art/cartoons/art comics. Influences: Chagall, Ernst, DuChamp, Polllock, DeKooning, Breton, Magritte. And a cartoon legend.

[Daniel Benevides · Rating 4 out of 5]

A primeira parte do livro, quando ele conta a história de sua juventude, é antológica, no mesmo nível de Meu Último Suspiro, da dupla Buñuel/Carrère. Na parte final se perde um pouco, com boas frases, mas conjunto confuso. As ilustrações, desnecessário dizer, valem por si o livro.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

“No sooner had I arrived in Milan than I was struck by the fact, not of being in Italy or at the university, but of being alone. Solitude was my deepest experience at that time: the discovery and novelty of solitude, its pleasures and terrors. I lived in Italy for eight years, and yet I didn’t see all that much of it; even in Milan I got to know only a particular neighborhood. My chief interest just then was in girls. What I was looking for was love, to find myself through love.” — Saul Steinberge, Reflections and Shadows

[Antonio Ippolito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per qualche € ho trovato al Libraccio questo delizioso libretto di ricordi del grande grafico, pubblicato anche in Italia da Adelphi (è addirittura quella l’edizione originale: ma questa mi sembra molto più graziosa). Ignoravo che Steinberg, per quasi sessant’anni celebre collaboratore del New Yorker, avesse rapporti così stretti con la mia Milano: soprattutto per aver frequentato Architettura al Politecnico negli anni ‘30, ma anche per significative partecipazioni alle Triennali del dopoguerra. Il nostro paese non fu inizialmente generoso con lui: nel ’41 fu addirittura internato in Abruzzo (non mi è chiaro perchè: per le leggi razziali bastava essere ebreo per l’internamento? Forse sì, se straniero: e Steinberg in quel momento era, credo, romeno), ma in seguito lo amò molto.
Qui abbiamo una raccolta di ricordi dall’infanzia all’arrivo al successo negli USA, estratti da conversazioni avute nella sua casa agli Hamptons con il compagbno di università Aldo Buzzi, che le ha raccolte. Deliziosi aneddoti di vita soprattutto in Romania e nell’Italia fascista (sembra quella di certi racconti di Hemingway: povera, piena di prostitute e con un regime ridicolo..), dove alla durezza e alla stupida cattiveria della vita si oppone sempre, vincendo, l’intelligenza e l’arguzia di chi non ha i pregiudizi della maggioranza.

[Erwin Maack · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Não havia muita diversão para os mais jovens, eu não
tinha nenhum direito, ia para o liceu levando uma placa
numerada, feito um automóvel; mas, sobretudo, quem não
tinha dinheiro não tinha como gozar as liberdades terríveis
da Romênia, praticar abusos, levar vida de grão-senhor, de
quem tem dinheiro e sempre encontra gente para comprar.
Minha infância, minha adolescência na Romênia foram
mais ou menos o equivalente de ter sido negro no estado
do Mississipi." (página 14)

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a quick read, with a sometimes peculiar rhythm. I like to read things from the artist's voice and for that it's interesting. The bit at the end about drawing from life offers some nice thoughts. Not a must read.

[Livietta · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stelle sentimentali. Io amo Steinberg e sono rimasta folgorata dalla Squarzola (la follia architettonica di Buzzi).
Queste 70 pagine scritte larghe sono riflessioni e appunti di Steinberg che inquadrano ulteriormente il personaggio. Adesso sono in fremente attesa che mi arrivi l'epistolario.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given his druthers, Steinberg would have ordered breakfast three times a day. I can see his point. In the last chapter of this thin oral memoir, he talks at length (which in this book means about five pages) about "Drawing from Life." It made him feel like a prisoner, he says, trapped, a slave to the subject, and in order to feel free again he had to add some bizarre detail or formal effect - something distancing, in other words, like a little cartoon duck. Some fascinating remarks, about "second" and "third" order drawings, follow this brief meditation. Fascinating (to me) because these types of games feel unforced and playful in Steinberg's actual work, in a way they don't in so many drawings (or books for that matter) with similar preoccupations. Magritte, for example, a small painting of whose Steinberg owned.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saul Steinberg is probably my favorite cartoonist. He did some stuff for the New Yorker in the 70's. This is his memoir. My favorite part is his retelling of his time in the Italian prisons, how the Italian were just lazy villains. Other than some poignant word pictures, this cartoonist is too abstract to make an immersible bio.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Certe cose è meglio lasciarle in pace, così come sono nel ricordo: col passare del tempo diventano la mitologia della nostra vita." (p. 36)

http://goo.gl/93Ey5K

[Diego Munoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great small book. I need to find more of his art work, which has a very distinct character to it.

He talks of his upbringing and also about what brought him to art.

[Adrimax · Rating 5 out of 5]

Para quem não ligou o artista à obra de arte, Saul Steinberg é o ilustrator da capa mais famosa da revista New Yorker (aquela com o "mapa-mundi" a partir da visão de um nova-iorquino).

Nesse livro, aprendi mais sobre a história desse romeno que migrou para os Estados Unidos fugindo do facismo. E quem conta é o autor, cineasta e arquiteto italiano Aldo Buzzi, amigo do artista. Os dois estudaram juntos em Milão e gravaram suas conversas nos anos 70.