Saul Steinberg: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

  He had written about Steinberg: John Hollander’s publications are at www.ct.gov/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2162&q=329210.

  Steinberg told Hollander that throughout: John Hollander, interview, October 2, 2007.

  The only other person besides Aldo: He also submitted one of his generic buxom women with large thighs and feet that dissolve into stiletto-pointed boots. To make sure Hollander did not use it, ST send a photocopy as well as the declaration “This picture is OUT”; ST to John Hollander, August 24, 1983, collection of John Hollander.

  Eventually they settled on sixteen: From an announcement promoting the publication: “Bound into each copy of the edition of 140 will be an original hard ground etching by Steinberg created exclusively for the publication.” Copy in YCAL, Box 99.

  “brace ourselves for more surprises”: ST to AB, July 12, 1883. ST was miffed that the book made money for the publisher and not for him, but that was not something he dwelled on; rather, he concentrated on how well the book was received.

  His name had long been used: Rodica Ionesco to ST, July 16, 1982, YCAL, Box 99.

  In New York, he graciously accepted: YCAL, Box 64.

  He took Bellow’s request: YCAL, Boxes 33, 64, 95, 99, and 110.

  Steinberg gave them all gifts of drawings: There is no documentation of the painting’s title or any that shows ST ever accepted payment. Lee Eastman’s letter is in YCAL, Box 64. A thank-you letter from Linda and Paul McCartney, n.d., from their home in East Sussex, England, is in Box 99. There is also no documentation pertaining to a second album cover.

  Michael Kennedy, Robert’s son: Michael Kennedy to ST, YCAL, Box 99.

  After he and Sigrid resolved the details: SS, diary, March 10–17, 1984, YCAL, Box 111.

  “low-rent restaurants”: ST to AB, March 27, 1984, SSF.

  “magic—return to forty years ago”: ST to AB, June 26, 1984, SSF; undated letters from AB to ST in YCAL, Box 99, and from Ada to ST throughout the YCAL boxes, where internal evidence provides the information given here. Records of ST’s financial bequests also appear in YCAL, Boxes 6, 7, 8, and 99, where statements from the Banco Lariano, Erba, credit ST with sending money to the account of Giovanni Ongari and Ada Cassola. Apparently Ada had resumed using her maiden name.

  She was always in pain: SS, diary entries and medical histories, YCAL, Boxes 99, 110, and 111. The tumor was a filium terminale ependymoma, slow-growing and common in young women. The laminectomy was performed sometime later. In 1990, when she had severe pain, she had another MRI, which resulted in a second surgery to correct inflammation of the arachnoid.

  “quite lovely”: ST to AB, June 25, 1984.

  He certainly tried to be happy: ST to AB, July 28, 1984, SSF.

  In a “gastronomical update”: ST to AB, August 7, 1984, SSF.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: WINDING UP LIKE MY PARENTS

  “I see with terror”: ST to AB, April 19 and July 2, 1985, SSF.

  The “mess” began: ST to AB, November 14 and 29, 1984, and August 12, 1985, SSF.

  “We have to be careful”: ST to SS, August 7, 1985, YCAL, Box 34.

  Sigrid had her own use: White paper plates with ST’s drawings are scattered throughout the YCAL boxes; some with SS’s messages are in Boxes 99 and 110.

  While the house was uninhabitable: In a typed diary for 1984, YCAL, Box 111, SS writes that she went to Africa early in January, leaving Papoose with HS, and that she had a breakdown (“desperate. don’t want to go to NY”) at Orly airport on the way home. “March 1: NY breakdown.” “March 10–17: Martinique, Barbados, Sanibel” (the islands from which they took short flights to Florida, and thence to New York).

  He told Aldo that making changes: ST to AB, December 15, 1984, SSF. HS and Claire Nivola joked about ST’s penchant “for adding a new room” on the interview tape she made, May 31, 2005.

  Instead of changing landlords, he changed: ST to AB, December 15, 1984, SSF.

  “first class TWA”: ST, “Agenda 1984,” YCAL, Box 73.

  The next day he went to Erba: In a 1991 diary, YCAL, Box 75, ST writes: “Green ink! Pity. I can’t help giving low marks for green ink.” Also, he feels for Solaroli “a beautiful emotion of love, friendship, spirit, complete confidence, security. I didn’t realize she is one of the few I trust.”

  “the beneficent illusion of travel”: ST to AB, November 14, 1984, SSF.

  This one found him constantly replaying: ST to AB, April 2, 1985, SSF.

  “We are the victims”: ST to AB, April 19, 1985, SSF.

  “excellent, pleasurable”: ST to AB, July 22, 1985. SSF

  It was not fair, she told him: SS to ST, letter written but not sent, Monday, October 4, 1984, YCAL, Box 111.

  Through Evelyn Hofer: SS, typed diary for 1984, YCAL, Box 111. Under October 30, she writes “See Armin Wanner first time.” Dr. Wanner did not respond to my repeated requests for interviews except for one e-mail citing doctor-patient confidentiality. Information in this paragraph is from SS, diary entries, YCAL, Boxes 109, 110, and 111.

  If he also hoped it would inspire her: SS, diary, 1987, YCAL, Box 111. She lists after his contribution $2,890 income from interests on savings and money market accounts.

  “Go fuck yourself”: SS to ST, November 18, 1989, YCAL, Box 111.

  Many of Steinberg’s friends were so concerned: I refer to letters from (among many others) Muriel Murphy, William Gaddis, Saul Bellow, and Peter Matthiessen in YCAL, Boxes 69, 75, and 99–111.

  “thin and whining”: ST to AB, October 16, 1985. SSF.

  “Too late,” he concluded: HS told me about this in an interview, October 11, 2007, as she described how he shuffled the obituary cards from the American Academy. The drawing was published in TNY, June 17, 1972, present whereabouts unknown.

  Two days before he died: ST to AB, March 18, 1988, SSF.

  “very unexpected and complicated mind”: ST, memorial tribute to Jean Stafford, YCAL, Box 94.

  “poor timing for obits”: ST, undated diary notation, YCAL, Box 95.

  He underlined the sentence: YCAL, Box 32. The folder of obituaries dates from the early 1980s, the handwritten list from the mid-eighties, and the article is June 2, 1993.

  “exaggerating, perhaps to avoid”: ST to AB, “January,” 1986, SSF.

  Still, no one expected the shattering announcement: Information about TNY is primarily from Yagoda, About Town, pp. 413–25.

  The staff hastily called: Roger Angell, telephone conversation, December 8, 2010.

  “an act of self-delusion”: Yagoda, About Town, p. 415.

  “sad, hurt, infuriated”: ST to AB, January 18, 1987, SSF.

  And then he sent Roger Angell: Roger Angell, telephone conversation, December 8, 2010.

  “unhappiness does not”: ST, diary, n.d. but probably early July 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  No one is sure how it began: Information that follows is from interviews with HS, Ruth Nivola, and Claire Nivola; the diary of Ruth Nivola; and HS’s taped recordings of reminiscences made with Claire Nivola in 2005.

  Ruth thought it was the most intimate: Diary of Ruth Nivola, undated entry.

  “the sole person I know with whom I can commiserate”: ST to AB, August 31, 1987.

  Among the closest to both men: Henri Cartier-Bresson to ST, May 17, 1988, YCAL, Box 94.

  “Dear Saul”: ST to ST, April 24, 1990, YCAL, Box 69. I was the first person to open the folder and read the message.

  “Now for some sensational news”: ST to AB, June 27, 1987, SSF. Documents pertaining to Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 663 F. Supp. 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1987),” are in YCAL, Boxes 32 and 33.

  he was quite pleased when Gaddis: William Gaddis to ST, January 23, 1987, YCAL, Box 64. Gaddis wanted to use the legal document as background material in a novel that would refer to what he called “the case of the dog Spot.”

  The case generated a new friendship: ST to PC, Friday, April 20, 1990; Judge Pierre N. Laval, U.S.D.J., to ST, August 7, 1987, and postcard, September 8, 1987. All in YCA
L, Box 33.

  “Lo and behold”: ST to AB, August 31, 1987, SSF.

  “when Saul and I divorced”: HS, interview, October 2007.

  “trusted [her] to do the right thing”: Legal agreement dated and signed December 19, 1989; living will dated April 25, 1990. On December 7, 1995, he wrote a new living will that appointed PC as his agent; YCAL, Box 71.

  “dropped out of the limelight”: Henrietta Danson to ST, June 21 [the year is not clear, probably 1987], YCAL, Box 94. ST wrote to AB, November 20, 1987, that even though Danson lived near him in New York, he seldom saw her, because she was boring and always wanted to talk about art. He thought her younger sister, Gertrude, who lived in a large house with swimming pool in Los Angeles, was “extraordinarily dull.”

  The Royal College of Art in London: Convocation program, July 1, 1988, YCAL, Box 94.

  Steinberg broke his ban: To represent the Steinberg family, he asked Henrietta’s son, Lawrence Danson, a professor at Princeton, and his wife, and his niece, Dana Roman, and her husband, Yan Richard. Aldo Buzzi and Bianca Lattuada topped his list of friends, followed by Bibi Eng, the daughter of Maryam Javaheri Eng and Robert Eng, who were also friends. From his professional life he invited his agent, Wendy Weil, the Glimchers, and the art historian Arthur C. Danto and his wife. He also invited the famed First Amendment lawyer who represented him against Columbia Pictures, Charles Rembar, and his wife; Sidney Felsen, the co-owner of Gemini G.E.L., and his wife; and his accountant, Charles Blitzer. Obituaries of Rembar, including that in the New York Times, October 2000, mistakenly listed Rembar as ST’s literary agent.

  “the pleasures of vanity”: ST to AB, May 30, 1989, SSF.

  Everyone else remembered: From interviews with John Hollander, Arthur C. Danto, Wendy Weil, and personal friends of DB on the Yale faculty who were also fellows of Morse College.

  “How monstrous”: ST, diary, May 15, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  There were four major exhibitions: Paris: Galerie Maeght Lelong, 1986, Repères: Cahiers d’Art Contemporain no. 30, 1986, with an interview of ST by Jean Frémon. ST, Paris: Galerie Adrien Maeght, 1988, catalogue with text by Eugène Ionesco.

  “a kind of personal payback”: ST to AB, September 29, 1987, SSF.

  However, essays by Italo Calvino: ST, 4th Internationale Triennale der Zeichnung, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 1988, catalogue texts by Italo Calvino and Curt Heigl.

  To head off their many attempts: Arthur C. Danto, interview, September 5, 2007; IF, interview, October 12, 2007; Claire Nivola, interview, July 2, 2008 (among many others).

  “who understand nothing”: ST to AB, July 4, 1990, SSF.

  He moved immediately to take: Loria and Loria, Saul Steinberg; catalogue for an exhibition at Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1995–96.

  Jeffrey Loria asked the distinguished: Nathan Garland, interviews, January 16, and July 31, 2007.

  “happy to be taken seriously”: ST to AB, November 6, 1992, SSF.

  “the title and drift”: John Updike to ST, June 19 and July 21, n.d., YCAL, Box 38. Updike refers to the help given by “the conscientious Mr. [Nathan] Garland” and also thanks ST for the gift of “your Swiss suicide.” He adds that he hopes someday to persuade Jeffrey Loria to write an introduction to the catalogue of his own Steinberg collection.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: THE LATEST NEWS

  “What I do these days”: ST, galley of Gopnik, “A Conversation with Saul Steinberg,” YCAL, Box 67. Because there are multiple copies of various typescripts there, for identification purposes this one bears the heading “Disk 10: gopnik A2 (steinberg).” The quote is from p. A2.

  Sometime in mid-June 1989: ST to AB, July 15 1989, YCAL, Box 94; Gordon Pulis, interview, September 20, 2007, YCAL, Box 111.

  Saul thought he had become: ST, diary, Sunday, May 26, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  And then he corrected himself: ST, diary, Sunday, June 2, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  He began with Prozac: Medical history and diagnosis of Jatin P. Shah, M.D., Memorial–Sloan Kettering Hospital, 1995, referring to medical history since 1990, YCAL, Box 71.

  “a perfect shit”: Arthur C. Danto, interview, September 5, 2007.

  His refuge was no longer the magazine: ST to AB, October 15, 1989, SSF.

  “75th and Park”: ST to AB, February 26, 1991, SSF.

  He made a series of drawings: TNY, June 8, 1992.

  “as dead as Wall Street”: ST, diary, “1991—April 25–July 5,” YCAL, Box 75.

  a fulsome declaration of “devotion”: ST to AB, February 24, 1990, SSF.

  There was a momentary scare: Tests conducted by Dr. Morton Fisch, February 1, 1991, copies in YCAL, Boxes 33 and 110.

  Although he continued to collect articles: Several years later, when ST was filling out a medical questionnaire, he told PC they had “gotten together the previous June (a birthday reconciliation?”); PC, mss. comment, 2011.

  “chicken nuggets and French fries”: ST wrote this in a diary entry, May 30, 1991, after a dinner with Karen van Lengen, and he made similar comments after dinners with Maryam Javahiri Eng, YCAL, Box 75.

  “every day, long or short”: ST to AB, May 8, 23, and 27, 1991, SSF.

  “talk in shorthand”: ST, diary, April 25–July 5, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  When he finally got under way: ST, The Discovery of America (New York: Knopf, 1992); ST to AB, May 3, 1990, SSF; ST to AB, July 4, 1990, SSF; Wendy Weil, telephone conversation, March 22, 2010; Wendy Weil, interview, March 24, 2010.

  Steinberg’s previous books had never sold well: Wendy Weil graciously made ST’s contracts and sales figures available for all the publications she represented.

  None of his drawings gave him pleasure: ST to AB, July 27 or 28, 1989, SSF.

  “50% in color”: ST to AB, June 5, 1990, SSF.

  He insisted passionately: ST to AB, April 3 and July 30, 1990, SSF.

  Often he collapsed: ST to AB, July 30, 1990, SSF.

  “What a mistake the book!”: ST, diary, April 25–July 5, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  “in the same surprising way”: ST to AB, September 29, 1990, SSF.

  He was among a select number: Marshall S. Cogan to ST, May 29, 1986, YCAL, Box 99.

  Quietly and usually anonymously: Committee to Reelect Holtzman to ST, October 18, 1989, YCAL, Box 94.

  Without being asked: Israel Museum, Jerusalem, to ST, thanking him for his contribution, YCAL, Box 94.

  The Discovery of America was the most: In the inscribed copy ST presented to Leo Steinberg, he wrote: “For Leo/this uneven book/L’amico Saul ST/Sept 92.” The copy is now in SSF.

  By the time he collected: “America’s Book” is in YCAL, Box 121.

  “tougher, grittier, darker”: “And Bear in Mind,” New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1992; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1992.

  one of the most perceptive: Red Grooms, “The World According to Steinberg,” New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1992, p. 7.

  “However playful”: Donald Kuspit, “Saul Steinberg at Pace Gallery,” Art Forum, March 1992, p. 91.

  Although Arthur Danto’s introduction: In e-mails of August 16 and 18, 2007, Danto wrote that “Discovery was not a great success—DOA: dead on arrival,” and that “things cooled between us” after the book was published.

  He was famed for writing letters of complaint: ST to AB, June 23, 1992, SSF: “I’m making life difficult for the people at Knopf, corrections, last minute changes, but the worst is over.”

  to persuade him to leave her: Andrew Wylie, e-mail, March 21, 2010; IF, interview, October 2007; Wendy Weil, interviews, March 22 and 24, 2010.

  “way of going always”: Wendy Weil, interviews, March 22 and 24, 2010. In her letter of August 24, 1992, she told ST that she did not agree to his request that Andrew Wylie take over the properties she represented, “nor do I agree that he should collect the moneys involved. My office will continue representing them as agreed”; YCAL, Box 38.
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br />   “real sorrows”: ST to AB, July 3, 1991, SSF.

  He could not stand the smell: ST to AB, November 16, 1991, SSF.

  Not until the dreaded Christmas holidays: AB, interview, October 2007; HS, interview, October 2007; Ruth Nivola, interview, September 22, 2007.

  “Every now and then”: ST to AB, December 23, 1991; ST, diary, Friday, May 24, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

  She wanted to know if it was true: PC to ST, February 14, 1984, YCAL, Box 64. In her letter of October 1, 1986, also YCAL, Box 64, PC asks ST if this was the copy signed by Aline Bernstein, given to her by Thomas Wolfe, who met James Joyce on several occasions. Perlman signed it before giving it to ST. ST gave it to PC, saying, “Because you will love it the most.” After ST’s death PC gave the book to Leo Steinberg, who had read it “about nine different times and in five editions and knew most of it by heart”; PC, e-mail, October 7, 2007. See also “Prudence Crowther on S. J. Perelman,” in The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships, edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein (New York: New York Review Collection, 2006), pp. 179–80.

  “an invaluable shortcut”: “PC on S. J. Perelman,” p. 180. In a diary entry for June 4, 1991, ST reminisced about his first days in America: “First thing learn the clichés in order to avoid them (or worse, reinvent them). In his satires (of let’s say Hollywood conversations) S. J. Perelman is indispensable as a teacher of pitfalls, common wisecracks, a hint of the fairly high level of popular sophistication.”

  Saul discovered that he was comfortable: PC to ST, April 18, 1997, YCAL, Box 38; PC e-mail to DB, October 7, 2007, mss. comment, 2011.

  Saul discovered that he was comfortable: PC, e-mail, October 7, 2007; PC, mss. comment, 2011.