SAUL STEINBERG

Born in Romania, Steinberg studied architecture in Milan, fled Fascist Italy in 1941, and arrived in New York the following year.  Wartime military service with U.S. Naval Intelligence and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) took him to China, India, Algeria, and Italy.  Returning to New York, he won a lofty place among the artists publishing in The New Yorker and other mass-circulation magazines.

Steinberg’s career in the art world kept pace with commercial work. His first one-artist exhibition was held in 1943 at the Wakefield Gallery, New York. Three years later, he was among the “Fourteen Americans” in a landmark show at The Museum of Modern Art, his works exhibited alongside those of Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, and Robert Motherwell. Three major New York galleries have represented Steinberg, beginning with Betty Parsons and Sidney Janis and, since 1982, The Pace Gallery.  To date, more than eighty solo shows of his art have been mounted in galleries and museums throughout America and Europe, including a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1978) and another at IVAM, the Institute for Modern Art in Valencia, Spain (2002). In 2006, “Steinberg: Illuminations,” the first comprehensive look at his career, set off on an eight-stop tour of the US and Europe. Most recently, “Saul Steinberg: The Americans,” a reinstallation of his colossal murals for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, opened at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

Steinberg defined drawing as “a way of reasoning on paper,” and he remained committed to the act of drawing in an era dominated by large-scale painting and sculpture. Throughout his long career, he used drawing to ponder the fabricated temper of modern life.  Famed worldwide for giving graphic definition to the postwar age, he crafted a rich and ever-evolving idiom—one that found full expression through parallel careers as an exhibiting artist, designer, muralist, and a self-described “writer who draws.” Sometimes with affection, sometimes with irony, but always with virtuoso mastery, Saul Steinberg peeled back the carefully wrought masks of 20th-century civilization.

2019 – “Saul Steinberg,” David Totah Gallery, New York

2017 – “Along the Lines: Selected Drawings by Saul Steinberg,” Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

2017 – “Frieze Masters,” Pace Gallery

2015 – “Steinberg a Milano,” Politecnico di Milano, Scuola di Architettura, Milano, Italy

2014 – “Saul Steinberg: 100th Anniversary Exhibition,” The Pace Gallery and Pace/MacGill, New York, New York

2014 – “Saul Steinberg: Drawings of Architecture and Public Space,” Center for Architecture, American Institute of Architects, New York, New York

2014 – “Saul Steinberg: Works from the 50s-80s,” Adam Baumgold Galley, New York, New York

2014 – “Saul Steinberg: Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of His Birth,” Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 

2013 – “Saul Steinberg: The Americans”, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

2013 – “Contemporary Cartographies: Drawing Thought”, Caixa Forum, Barcelona and Madrid

2012 – “Scapes”, Denver Art Museum, Colorado

2011 – “Cartoon Polymaths”, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons/The New School for Design, New York

2011 – “Pierre Bonnard: Magier der Farbe”, Von de Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany

2010 – “Intimacy! Baden in der Kunst/Bathing in Art”, Kunstmuseum Ahlen, Germany

2010 – “50 Years at Pace”, The Pace Gallery, New York

2010 – “Saul Steinberg: Works from the 5s-8s”, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York

2010 – “Saul Steinberg: L’Écriture visuelle”, Musée Tomi Ungerer, Strasbourg

2010 – “Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum”,  Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

2010 – “Intimacy! Baden in der Kunst/Bathing in Art”, Kunstmuseum Ahlen

2010 – “About Face: A Compilation”, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York

2009 – “Saul Steinberg: Landscapes”, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York

2009 – “Saul Steinberg: Works from the 5s-8s”, Adam Baumgold Gallery

2008 – “Saul Steinberg”, Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris

2008 – “Sterne and Steinberg: Critics Within”, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas

2008 – “L’Art Contemporain à l’Exposition Universelle Expo ’58”, Musées Royaux de Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels

2008 – “Action/Abstraction:  Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976”, The Jewish Museum, New York

2008 – “Here’s the Thing”, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York

2008 – “Glossolalia:  Languages of Drawing”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2008 – “Saul Steinberg: Tables and Other Sculpture”, PaceWildenstein Gallery, New York

2007 – “A City on Paper: Saul Steinberg’s New York”, Museum of the City of New York, New York

2005 – “Looking at Words: The Formal Presence of Text in Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

2005 – “The Art of The New Yorker: Eighty Years in the Vanguard”, The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

2005 – “Steinberg at The New Yorker,” PaceWildenstein, New York

2005 – “Second Sight: Originality, Duplicity, and the Object”, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

2004 – “Off the Wall: Works from the JPMorgan Chase Collection”, Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, Greenwich, Connecticut

2004 – “A Celebration of the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts: Lifetime Achievement Honorees in the Visual Arts”, Guild Hall Museum, New York, New York

2004 – “Steinberg: An Intimate View of His Art and World,” Visual Arts Museum, School of Visual Arts, New York

2003 – “American Short Stories: Saul Steinberg/Raymond Pettibon”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida

2002 – “Saul Steinberg”, Valencia: Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain

1999 – “Steinberg: Drawing into Being”, PaceWildenstein, New York

1995/96 – “Saul Steinberg: About America 1948-1995. The Collection of Jeffrey and Sivia Loria”, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania; New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, Philadelphia

1994 – “Saul Steinberg on Art”, The Pace Gallery, New York, New York

1992 – “Saul Steinberg: The Discovery of America”, The Pace Gallery, New York, New York

1990 – “Steinberg”, Galleria Seno, Milan, Italy

1988 – “Steinberg: 4. Internationale Triennale der Zeichnung”, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg

1988 – “Steinberg”, Galerie Adrien Maeght, Paris, France

1987 – “Saul Steinberg: Recent Work”, The Pace Gallery, New York, New York

1986 – “Steinberg”, Galerie Maeght Lelong, Paris, France

1983 – “Saul Steinberg”, Waddington Galleries, London

1982 – “Saul Steinberg: Still Life and Architecture”, The Pace Gallery, New York, New York

1982 – “Saul Steinberg: Mixed Media on Paper and Wood”, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago

1980 – “Saul Steinberg, Richard Lindner”, Galerie Maeght, Paris, France

1979 – “Saul Steinberg”, Washington, D.C.: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; London: Arts Council of Great Britain, Serpentine Gallery; Saint-Paul: Fondation Maeght.

1978 – “Saul Steinberg”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New york

1977 – “Steinberg”, Galerie Maeght, Zurich, Switzerland

1977 – “Steinberg”, Galerie Maeght, Paris, France

1976 – “Steinberg Drawings”, Sidny Janis Gallery, New York

1974/75 – “Saul Steinberg: Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Collagen, Gemälde, Reliefs 1963-1974.” Cologne: Kölnischer Kunstverein. Traveled to: Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein; Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft; Graz: Kulturhaus der Stadt Graz; Vienna: Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts.

1973 – “Steinberg 1973”, Galerie Maeght, Paris

1973 – “Steinberg at the Smithsonian: The Metamorphosis of an Emblem”, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

1973 – “Saul Steinberg.” New York: Sidney Janis Gallery and Betty Parsons Gallery.

1973 – “Saul Steinberg.” Milan: Galleria Mario Tazzoli.

1971 – “Steinberg 1971.” Paris: Galerie Maeght. Traveled to Zurich: Galerie Maeght as “Steinberg: Ölbilder, Gouachen, Zeichnungen.”

1971 – “Paintings and Drawings: Saul Steinberg.” Los Angeles: Felix Landau Gallery.

1970 – “Steinberg.” Houston: Kiko Galleries.

1969 – “Drawings by Saul Steinberg.” New York: Sidney Janis Gallery and Betty Parsons Gallery.

1968 – “Steinberg: Dibujos y Acuareles.” Caracas: Museo de Bellas Artes.

1967/68 – “Steinberg: ‘The Americans’ et Aquarelles, Dessins et Collages 1955-1967.” Brussels: Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Musée d’Art Moderne,1967. Traveled to Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1967, as “Steinberg”; Hamburg, Hamburger Kunstalle, 1968, as “Steinberg: Zeichnungen und Collagen.”

1966 – “Steinberg.” Paris: Galerie Maeght.

1966 – “Saul Steinberg.” New York: Sidney Janis Gallery and Betty Parsons Gallery.

1954 – “Steinberg.” Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft.

1953 – “Steinberg 1953.” Paris: Galerie Maeght.

1953 – “Saul Steinberg.” Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum.

1952 – “Saul Steinberg.” New York: Betty Parsons Gallery and Sidney Janis Gallery.

1952 – “Saul Steinberg.” São Paulo: Museu de Arte.

1952 – “Saul Steinberg.” London: Institute of Contemporary Arts.

1951 – “Steinberg.” Rome: Galleria L’Obelisco.

1950 – “Saul Steinberg.” New York: Betty Parsons Gallery.

1945 – “Saul Steinberg: All in Line,” Young Books, New York, New York

1943 – “Saul Steinberg,” Wakefield Gallery, New York, New York

The Saul Steinberg Foundation

The Paris Review – “Portraits and Landscapes” by Saul Steinberg

The New York Times – “Drawing the Line, and Crossing It. Saul Steinberg: A Biography” by Deirdre Bair

Archives of American Art – “Oral History Interview with Saul Steinberg, 1971”

NPR – “Steinberg Obit” on All Things Considered

“Saul Steinberg: The Americans,” at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne

Youtube – “Saul Steinberg Talks” video uploaded by Garramedia

The New Zealand Herald – “Saul Steinberg: ‘I Want to be a Dog’s Eyebrow'” by Linda Herrick

NYPL Digital Collections – “Saul Steinberg: Oral History Memoir” Inverview by Raymond Rosenthal and Moishe Ducovny

American Institue of Graphic Arts (AIGA) – “Anton Van Dalen, Saul Steinberg’s Assistant” by Steven Heller