Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  Steinberg was a true perfectionist, famous among his friends for discarding and sometimes destroying almost as much of his work as he actually kept. His studio assistants remember how he studied each finished work with scrupulous intensity before agreeing to let it leave his studio, peering closely as he turned it this way and that, looking at it upside down and sideways; his friends remember how diligent he was about destroying his discards so that it would not be worth the trouble for an unscrupulous scavenger to try to fish something out of his trash can.

  Steinberg thought he was taking a huge risk by exposing deeply personal matter. He had always taken pains not to let the public see the people, places, and things he cared about most, and drawing from life made him fear that he was revealing “certain parts” of himself, “areas of vulgarity where I don’t tell the truth, making use of what I already know, commonplaces.” He was frustrated when “things don’t end up the way they should—the results don’t live up to the promise.” It was the opposite of drawing from the imagination, when, in the guise of the protagonist, he always knew when the work was final and finished, ready to leave his studio and be sent out into the world. But this was the work that made him happy and satisfied, and this was what he wanted to publish. His worry was eased by the thought that he would be working with John Hollander.

  Steinberg had known Hollander since the late 1960s, when they were often invited to the same events in New York, and as they both owned houses in Amagansett, seeing each other there as well. It was in Springs that Hollander got the title for one of his books of poetry, Blue Wine, when he visited Steinberg and watched him fill wine bottles with an unidentifiable blue substance. He had written about Steinberg in magazines such as Commentary and The Listener and he had written the introductions to the catalogue for Steinberg’s Smithsonian exhibition and the new edition of The Passport. The two men had many discussions of Steinberg’s art throughout the collaboration on Dal Vero, but some years after it was published, they talked more fully about it in a conversation that Hollander remembered long after.

  Steinberg told Hollander that throughout his long career, he had always felt “uneasy” about being treated as an artist, for he thought of himself primarily as “a cartoonist who drew for immediate publication.” He spoke of the difference between doing graphic art as an ancillary to painting or sculpture and doing graphic art as the necessary consequence for painting, and said he fell between the cracks and crevices that separated the two. Steinberg offered the example of Goya, who also prepared what he called “graphic art for publication.” Hollander demurred, saying that he found more resonances between Steinberg and Blake, for “Steinberg was an intellectual cartoonist, a satirist of representation, and Blake was a satirist of conceptual representation.” Steinberg said he didn’t care who Hollander compared him to or where the art world placed him; what he disliked was seeing his work hanging on walls, for he was far more comfortable seeing it on paper. He objected to the institutionalizing of painting and everything connected with the commercial process of getting it out for consumption by viewers; if he did veer into “painting” with these drawings from life, he still wanted their initial appearance to be on paper.

  STEINBERG SUBMITTED APPROXIMATELY TWENTY DRAWINGS TO Hollander, almost all of them featuring Sigrid in some sort of repose, reading, sewing, just sitting quietly and often staring off into the distance. He made one double portrait, of Sigrid and Aldo, but mostly, when not drawing her, he captured the objects on the kitchen table, the view outside the studio’s sliding glass doors, Papoose prowling or sleeping sometimes on Sigrid’s lap. The only other person besides Aldo whose portrait Steinberg submitted was Harold Rosenberg’s, but shortly after, quietly and without an explanation, he withdrew it. Eventually they settled on sixteen drawings to accompany sixteen “prose meditations.”

  Hollander created a dreamy, shimmering text that matched the tranquillity of the drawings. A reader could move easily between the two, pausing to savor first one and then the other, concluding, as Barthes had done earlier, that they could be approached “endlessly” even as they remained “a mirage.” Steinberg, still unsure that he had made the right decision to let the drawings out into the world, told Hollander that they should probably “brace ourselves for more surprises.” But there were no surprises when the book appeared, and it did “come out well,” praised by the collectors for whom it was intended. Steinberg was proud of this book and pleased that his worries had been for naught.

  STEINBERG BROKE HIS OATH NOT TO be involved in any more retrospectives when the University of Bridgeport in nearby Connecticut invited him to become the Dorne Professor in the arts, an honor he accepted proudly. He broke the oath because the exhibition featured (among other artists he liked and respected) Alice Neel, Josef Albers, Mary Frank, Robert Motherwell, Red Grooms, and Louise Nevelson. He learned of an honor of another kind when Rodica Ionesco, the playwright’s wife, wrote to congratulate him on being listed in the authoritative French dictionary Larousse. He was described as an “American drawer [dessinateur] of Romanian origin,” noted for his humor, satire, and exceptional originality. His name had long been used informally as the adjective Steinbergian, and now the Larousse gave legitimate dignity to this usage. In New York, he graciously accepted the Mayor’s Award for contributions to the arts and culture of the city, and an equally impressive invitation came when Saul Bellow invited him to participate in a “Great Books” conference led by Professor Allan Bloom at the University of Chicago. He took Bellow’s request for critiques of his speech very seriously and made many handwritten suggestions for changes on the typescript, which Bellow incorporated into the final text.

  He was also broadening his circle of younger friends. One of his neighbors in the Hamptons, the lawyer Lee Eastman, introduced him to his daughter, Linda, and her husband, Paul McCartney of the Beatles. Steinberg gave them all gifts of drawings after he designed the cover for McCartney’s album Cold Cuts, and when Paul and Linda were eager to have him design another cover, he sent a second drawing as a gift. Linda McCartney said they would be delighted to have it but insisted on paying for it. Michael Kennedy, Robert’s son, invited him to a reception for the Nicaraguan politician Daniel Ortega after he addressed the United Nations General Assembly; Steinberg declined, saying that he would see Kennedy and his wife, Eleanore, at another time.

  IT SEEMED TO STEINBERG THAT HE had made all the right decisions about putting his personal and professional lives in good order. After he and Sigrid resolved the details of their latest separation, they went to Martinique in March 1984 and had a pleasant holiday. They were both using the Springs house, albeit often in separate bedrooms and at separate times, and when they were together they were able to enjoy casual suppers in “low-rent restaurants” that stayed open during the winter. Steinberg had agreed to have new work ready by 1986 for exhibitions at Maeght Lelong (as the Paris gallery was now known) and Pace in 1987, and his literary agent, Wendy Weil, was hinting strongly that he should be thinking about a new book. Everything seemed under control until several things happened to disrupt his peace of mind.

  Ada resurfaced for the usual reason—she needed money. She was living with her husband now, and he was badly crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She teased Saul with the comment that she had just suffered an infarcto, a heart episode, but neither she nor Aldo (when Saul pleaded with him to find out) explained any further. All this was a prelude to Ada’s telling him that there was an opening in a desirable retirement home in Erba, just above Bellagio, and they had been invited to take it. She was reluctant for two reasons: they did not have the money for the entrance fee or the monthly maintenance, and, more important, she was not yet ready to admit she was old enough to live in a home for the elderly. Saul was surprised at how deeply this news upset him.

  He had not seen Ada, nor had he corresponded with her, for so long that the thought of resuming the friendship (for that’s what it was now), even though at long distance, was quite unsettling. But be
ing his usual generous self, he knew he had to do something, so he phoned her, and the conversation was “magic—return to forty years ago.” It awakened his need for frequent telephone contact, which became “strong and essential,” as did his need to see that she was well provided for: he gave her the money for the entrance fee to the Casa Pina and made arrangements to deposit a generous monthly stipend of $1,000 into her bank account, plus more whenever she needed it. She had only to ask (and often she did) when she wanted a holiday or vacation or one of her appliances died and she needed a new one. Ada’s only other income was the modest support she received from the Italian government, and so Saul willingly became her primary provider for the rest of her life.

  He worried about Ada long-distance, but Sigrid was right there, with medical problems that were truly frightening and needed immediate attention. She was always in pain from what she called quite simply “a bad back,” and she realized something was seriously wrong only on the day that she tried to jaywalk across a busy Manhattan intersection, when she was in so much pain that she could not walk fast enough to cross the street before the light changed, nor could she lift her leg to mount the curb once she got there. She consulted a neurologist, who sent her to Lenox Hill Hospital for tests, which revealed a large tumor on her lower spine. Immediate surgery to remove it was performed on April 16, 1984. Fortunately, the tumor was benign, but there were other problems, all caused by the deprivations of her wartime childhood diet. There was significant curvature (lordosis) to her lower spine, and she needed a laminectomy to correct it. All told, it was a long and difficult operation which kept her in the hospital and on morphine for a week, but she healed quickly afterward and had an “extremely benign post operative course.”

  Steinberg took her to Springs and saw to it that she was cared for and coddled. She was still there when it came time to plant the garden in late May, and she was strong enough to put in all the flowers she loved and take delight in doing it. Steinberg thought it “quite lovely—indeed a touching and childish garden, a compensation for her unsteady mind.”

  But he was kind to her, and she was grateful. There were no tantrums and no depression on her part. He certainly tried to be happy and positive while she was there, but it wasn’t easy and nothing seemed to work. In a “gastronomical update,” he told Aldo that he was determined to lose weight and get over the insomnia that was becoming fairly constant, and his intention was, “above all, to avoid melancholy.” To that end, he stopped drinking liquor again and ate only brown rice and steamed vegetables, a regime he was encouraged to stick to after the eighty-year-old Isamu Noguchi came to spend the day. Steinberg was impressed when they took a long walk and Noguchi strode steadily at a faster pace than his, talking and listening with equal intensity. He thought it would be a good idea to keep Noguchi firmly in mind as a role model, but like so many other good intentions, this one was pushed aside when other crises presented themselves.

  CHAPTER 42

  WINDING UP LIKE MY PARENTS

  I see with terror that despite the progress, journeys, books, etc., I’m winding up like my parents, confused and fearful. What a shame … I remind myself that I’m seventy-one and that I’ve survived wars and disasters and that hypochrondria, too, will pass.

  Despite all the work he had done on the Springs house, it was old and in need of a constant succession of repairs and renewals, and this time they were all major. Starting with a new roof, the entire exterior needed replacing. The cedar shingles on the walls were smothered by an ancient tangle of ivy that had caused most them to rot and fall off. Roof and walls had to be stripped to bare boards, reinsulated, and then re-covered. As long as the workmen were there, Steinberg decided they might as well tend to the second-floor bedrooms; new windows and heating apparatus were installed, and the interior was painted. With all that under way, the first floor looked extremely shabby, so he had the walls covered with wood paneling, new windows put in, and interior painting done there as well. But before any of this could happen, the house’s entire electrical system had to be upgraded. The “mess” began in the winter of 1984 and was not finished until late summer 1985, all of it happening during a “rotten moment due to complications with Sigrid, the house, work.” Steinberg coped by practicing Zen to cultivate “the happiness of a stoic.” His outlook was reinforced by his new friend Joseph Heller, whose cheerfully ironic pessimism was just the kind Steinberg appreciated.

  Just as the house renovations were getting started, his cousin Phil suffered a stroke and died. Although they had not spent much time together, their friendship had deepened through Phil’s rambling, stream-of-consciousness letters, which touched on everything from local politics to the satisfactions of work, the love of a good woman, and the importance of family ties. Phil was the only member of the extended Steinberg family with whom Saul felt real affinity, so his death was a serious loss, especially because it was so unexpected. What Saul found most unsettling about Phil’s death, however, was that he and his cousin were exactly the same age, seventy. This intimation of mortality hit far too close to home.

  With Sigrid, the ups and downs continued despite their supposed once-and-for-all final separation and despite the kindness Saul dispensed during her convalescence. When she wrote another of her ongoing series of accusatory letters, he made an uncharacteristic attempt to mend the breach with a letter of his own. “We have to be careful,” he wrote, adding that he loved and missed her. But they were incapable of breaking their old patterns and could not be together for long without a major blowup. Silence once again dominated their interactions in the house, and they were back to communicating via written messages. Steinberg kept a huge supply of paper plates on hand, the ordinary white cardboard ones with fluted edges. He was fond of drawing on the dessert-sized ones, sometimes making masks with cut-outs for noses, other times making household lists or jotting down thoughts that might become drawings. Sometimes he would dash off a drawing pertaining to whoever was seated at his table, and many ended up as valued souvenirs of the people who received them. Sigrid had her own use for the paper plates, as informal bulletin boards on which to post her latest ultimatum, which she always left at his place so it would be the first thing he saw when he sat down to a meal.

  And yet when they traveled together they were the most loving of couples. While the house was uninhabitable they took several trips, first to Martinique and Barbados and then to Sanibel Island, Florida, where they had been the year before. They rented the same apartment, on the fourth floor of a condominium that was a short walk from the ocean. Although it was luxuriously furnished and spacious, it forced them into closer proximity than they had in Springs, but they managed nonetheless to live in the peaceful harmony that eluded them everywhere else.

  When the vacation was over they returned to their separate apartments, and Steinberg abruptly decided that he had to sell his and move. He knew he was behaving irrationally and he knew why: it was how he had reacted since Milan, when he had moved from one student hovel to another, thinking that the cure for his unhappiness would be a new place to live. He told Aldo that making changes to the Springs house whenever he felt the old restlessness brewing was not enough, and said that he was free to conclude— correctly—that he had “changed landlords” instead of changing his bad habits. For a week he attacked the search for a new apartment with the intensity of one of his Don Quixote figures girding to vanquish a pineapple, but after getting no further than reading the want ads, he gave up, and moving became something he only hinted at now and then. Instead of changing landlords, he changed locations through travel.

  ONCE STEINBERG WAS BACK IN TOUCH with Ada, her attitude toward him veered quickly from what he wanted, a warm friendship based on a shared past, to her desire for a renewal of the intense sexual passion they had enjoyed before the war. He was a little frightened by her love letters and blatant overtures on the telephone, but at the same time he wanted—indeed, needed—to see her. He flew to Milan “first class TWA” and checke
d into one of the best hotels in the city, where Aldo and Bianca met him for dinner that night. The next day he went to Erba and spent the afternoon with Ada before going to Turin to see Consolata Solaroli, a graphic designer he had known and liked for many years, despite her penchant for using green ink, which gave him shudders. On a whim, the day afterward he flew to Zagreb and then to Zurich before returning to Milan to spend his final afternoon with Ada and his last evening with Aldo. He and Ada had come to an understanding that there would always be a very special intimacy between them but that it would be a shared memory and no longer sexual. The next day he flew to Paris for three days of pure holiday, and then back to New York.

  WHEN HE ARRIVED, HE WAS STILL under “the beneficent illusion of travel, the illusion of liberty,” but the freedom was short-lived: “The mail was waiting, the telephone, and other chores are already closing in.” As the new year, 1985, arrived, he settled into his well-heated apartment and seldom went out, and when he did, it was usually for long walks along the avenues and streets of the Upper East Side. Steinberg tried but could not keep himself from falling into a profound “melancholy,” his euphemism for periodic bouts of serious depression. This one found him constantly replaying scenes from his past life and immersing himself in reading as a way of coping with angry thoughts about his past humiliations. Books he had once loved were now merely “clever,” and if they did help him to sleep, it was only for a few hours, after which he would wake up agitated and fixating on things from the past he had all but forgotten or other “oddities” he was at a loss to explain. “We are the victims of childhood for too long,” he said, as he was suffused with inexplicable nighttime anxiety and terror. Despite all the sophistication he had acquired and all the admiration and affection that had been lavished on him since he had left Bucharest, he feared there was no way to avoid “winding up like my parents, confused and fearful. What a shame.”