Saul Steinberg: A Biography Part 31

"What I learned from Artists": ST, datebook, n.d. but probably early 1980s, YCAL, Box 38.

Now, on the way home: The most striking representation is his TNY cover of February 5, 1972, in which a figure of a man stands between two signs pointing in opposite directions. He is turned away from the one reading "before" and faces the one reading "after."

If he read something he liked: Among those to whom he wrote were Lore Siegel, Alice Munro, Veronica Geng, IF, and Donald Barthelme.

"In order to become a fox": ST, diary, November 25, 1955, YCAL, Box 3. Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History, was originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson (London, 1953), and read by ST in that edition.

While in Paris, he did buy: ST to HS, "Friday night" (April 1955), AAA.

Jim Geraghty took him to lunch: ST did not become a member of the Century a.s.sociation until 1965, proposed by Eric Larrabee and seconded by Sidney Simon. He resigned on October 19, 1975, in a letter to Russell Lynes, saying that he never used the club and saw no purpose in continuing his membership. I am grateful to Dr. Russell Flinchum, the Century archivist, for providing this information.

He was still thinking about the self-knowledge: Information that follows is from ST, datebook, September 9 to December 30, 1955, YCAL, Box 3.

He was discreet: ST, 1955 datebook, YCAL, Box 3; one of the Parisian encounters was "Marielouise L.," December 1954, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

There was so much to do: ST, National Diary Page-A-Day, January 3, 1956, YCAL, Box 3.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: A GRAND OLD-FASHIONED JOURNEY.

"I've made a grand old-fashioned journey": ST to AB, April 13, 1956, SSF.

There was much to do: ST, 1956 National Diary appointment book, YCAL, Box 3.

"the cruelest humorist": "L'intransigeant," Paris-presse, February 2, 1956, p. 7C, YCAL, Box 70.

"quiet Englishman": ST to HS, February 17, 1956, AAA.

He was also thankful: ST to HS, February 18, 20, and 21, 1956, from Leningrad, AAA.

He was a.s.signed a woman guide: Information from a second datebook for 1956 dedicated to ST's diary of the Russian trip, YCAL, Box 3.

he insisted on seeing the Finland Station: Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1940). The Finland Railroad Station was the terminus for trains from Helsinki and Vyborg and was made famous when V. I. Lenin went through it on his return to Russia.

"three horses galloping": ST to HS, Tuesday, February 21, 1956, AAA.

At this point, he didn't care: He bought so many things that he had to find a Russian bank to cash $300 in travelers' checks. ST, Russian datebook, February 20, 1956, YCAL, Box 3; ST to HS, February 23 and 27, 1956, and cable February 27, 1956, all AAA.

Everything in Moscow was "enormous": Figure 49 in S:I, p. 51, shows vividly the vastness of the square and how it dwarfs the people in it.

Much of the rest of his three days: In his Russian datebook he wrote only the last names of the emba.s.sy people (Conant, Bohlen, White) or the reporters (Raymond of the New York Times, Levine of CBS, Schorr of the Chicago Tribune); YCAL, Box 3.

He liked his interpreter: His writing is unclear, and the name may have been Yonkin.

"Turkish verandas": ST, diary, March 4, 5, and 6, 1956, YCAL, Box 3.

They went on to the Ivari Monastery: In his diary, ST mistakenly calls it the Samtavro Monastery.

the young historian: Later known as Priscilla Johnson MacMillan, who wrote about Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, and other topics pertaining to modern Russia.

"sensitive and brutal faces": Vladimir Maximov was the dissident author of Seven Days of Creation, A Train for Moscow, and the memoir of his adolescence, Adieu from Nowhere. He was sent to a mental hospital, exiled to Paris, and later permitted to return to Moscow.

Bohlen also arranged an interview: ST mistakenly gives the name as "Shugnov" in his diary, YCAL, Box 3. Voks was the official U.S.S.R. journal published by the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Highly propagandistic, it was so thoroughly reviled abroad that in 1958 it was discontinued, reorganized, and reissued under another name and with more objective content.

"whether [Averell] Harriman": ST wrote this in a little notebook where he jotted things that struck his fancy, now YCAL, Box 95. According to PC, the contents of Box 95 were so important to ST that he kept them in his bedside table.

He stole the telephone directory: WMAA, p. 241.

"Thank you my darling": In an interview, April 18, 2007, HS said, "This was one of my favorite stories about Saul." In his 1956 datebook, ST gave the man's remark as "My darling, I must go!"

"The smell of fear": Jean Stein vanden Heuvel, "An Interview with Saul Steinberg," typescript, YCAL, Box 38, eventually edited into the article published in Life.

"frozen snow, Bolshoi": ST to AB, April 13, 1956, SSF.

"a trip for my nose": WMAA, p. 241.

He worked from notes: These notes are in YCAL, Box 7, and appear to be companions to his YCAL sketchbooks 199202b, 4860, 4869.

"Comments about buildings in USSR": YCAL, Box 7.

"the best reporting": Arthur Caylor, San Francisco News, September 29, 1956.

CHAPTER TWENTY: COVERING 14,000 MILES.

"Back from Alaska": ST to AB, September 17, 1956, SSF.

A check had come in: Statement in YCAL, Box 7, n.d.

Added to all these: Correspondence with Alexander Lindey, January 25, 1956 to March 7, 1956, YCAL, Box 7.

"in consideration of the sum": These contracts appear annually among ST's correspondence in the YCAL boxes; here, I refer specifically to the one sent by R. Hawley Truax with accompanying letter dated October 22, 1954.

In that one, Steinberg drew: Joel Smith corroborates ST's habit of recycling old work for other purposes in S:I, p. 44.

"Operation Steinberg": Manuel Ga.s.ser, "Steinberg as an Advertising Artist," Graphis no. 6368 (JanuaryDecember 1956): 37685.

In one ad for Noilly Prat: Ibid., p. 381, cites research figures for 1956 that show Noilly Pratt "achieved the biggest sales success in its own or any other trade sector."

For Schweppes, he created: This drawing, like the ad he did for Postum in 1943, contains portions of subject matter used before. The most blatant examples of ST's recycling are in the designs for the firms Patterson and Greef for wallpaper and fabrics of European cityscapes, all of which he worked and reworked for several years. One example is his 1946 ad for D'Orsay perfume, which shows up later in the fabric designs, particularly those for Patterson. See also S:I, p. 44.

Perhaps the most wildly imaginative print ads: Winius Brandon Company Advertising, St. Louis, Missouri, YCAL, Box 7.

"demands coincide with your aspirations": James Geraghty to ST, November 10, 1954, YCAL, Box 8.

a television commercial for Jell-O: The ad, which was a huge success in 1955, came in for severe criticism on the post-feminist Internet in 2009, when it was described as a "grim animated commercial ... It shows a haggard woman on a treadmill being a.s.saulted by symbols. The look on her face is one of pure despair. The female narrator seems to be taunting her. The plaintive harmonica tune that's playing is both sad and intentionally insipid. At the woman's blackest moment, she gets covered up by a black scrawl ... All is cured, of course, once she buys a box of Jell-O instant pudding." From www.boingboing.net/2009/08/12depressing-1950's-jel.html.

"comic draughtsman": From a statement prepared by Hallmark and used in its advertising, YCAL, Box 8.

Unquestionably he had arrived commercially: Because these requests are so many and can be found in almost every YCAL Box, I merely alert the scholar to their existence without naming any specifically.

"Left by car": ST, datebook, 1956, YCAL, Box 3, and HS, interviews, 2007.

"the beauty of an eventless life": HS to ST, "the 31 January," internal evidence suggests 1944 as it is in reply to his of "Jan 18," YCAL, microfilm letters.

"some room, any room": HS to ST, Reno, May 31 [1944], YCAL, microfilm letters.

"an understanding between [two] people": HS to ST, "Feb 23," probably 1943, YCAL, microfilm letters.

"a rather bad att.i.tude": HS to ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests May 1944, when she was en route to Reno for her divorce from Fred Stafford, YCAL, microfilm letters.

In the Pacific Northwest: Several years later, ST received a letter concerning things he bought on the trip. On November 25, 1958, YCAL, Box 6, Michael Train asked if ST was still interested in having rugs or serapes made to his design. The artist, a Native American whom ST had befriended, "is growing listless from lack of fresh designs to work on. He is a neurotic Indian who suffers in part from what used to be called 'artistic temperament' and when forced to continually turn out the so-called 'authentic designs' has a tendency to get drunk or spend all his time playing the saxophone ... I consider it to my advantage to keep him busy." Train also offered to sell ST "sneeze powder, collapsing forks, dribble gla.s.ses, and squirting boutonnieres."

Saul said that like Cornell: Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), p. 134.

Rothko's insistence that he painted: James Breslin, Mark Rothko: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 243.

When Hedda painted the Newmans: References to Cornell, Rothko, and the Newmans which are similar to these quotes can be found in the undated letters of HS, internal evidence suggesting the early 1950s, in YCAL, microfilm letters. HS gave the paintings of the Newmans to Priscilla Morgan, who bequeathed them to Va.s.sar College.

On the other hand, Hedda often spoke: Two such examples are HS to ST, "Reno, May 31," and "Monday 21" [probably 1944], YCAL, microfilm letters.

"a disaster-everything was in poor shape": Appraisal, YCAL, Box 7, Folder 20.

"charming clients really": Schuman, Schuman & Furman to Alexander Lindey, March 30, 1957, YCAL, Box 7.

However, it still took both lawyers: Alexander Lindey to ST, June 26 and July 29, 1957, YCAL, Box 7, Folder 17.

"I enjoy chopping wood": ST to AB, November 1956, SSF.

"bad mood because I'm dissatisfied": ST to AB, December 10, 1956, and March 10, 1957.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: SIX PEOPLE TO SUPPORT.

"Latest news: sister out of Romania": ST to AB, October 5, 1957, SSF.

The scenery was not enough: Information that follows is from interviews and conversations with HS; WMAA, p. 242; doc.u.ments pertaining to the purchase and sale of the Citroen from YCAL, Box 7.

"A gentleman of Madrid": ST to insurance agent Michel H. Lobut, rue de Richelieu, Paris, June 25, 1957, YCAL, Box 7.

On their way home: On July 1, 1957, he deposited the proceeds of the sale, $1,745, in his account at Chemical Corn Exchange Bank, YCAL, Box 7.

Richard Lindner, for example: HS to ST, n.d. but probably from the mid-1950s, YCAL, microfilm, reel 14445.

But the friendship with the Stilles: Interviews and conversations with HS, Ruth Nivola, Claire Nivola, Alexander Stille; letters and doc.u.ments cited where appropriate.

Stille was educated: Alexander Stille, in conversation on January 6, 2009, believed that both his father and ST may have been involved with Leo Longanesi's magazine Omnibus, but he was not sure they knew each other before the war, as they lived in different cities.

Steinberg never gave up his love: Letizia Airos Soria, "The Language of Ugo, Alexander, and Sam," IADP i-Italy, June 1, 2008, http://www.i-italy.org/2279/language-ugo-alexander-sam. See also Stille's "Steinberg Diario Italiano: Gli anni della formazione e della persecuzione razziale," La Dominica di Repubblica, August 10, 2008.

Ugo often traveled for his job: "Ugo Stille" was a pen name adopted in the 1930s when he wrote a column with the poet Giamme Pintor for the magazine Oggi. When Pintor was killed by the Germans during the war, Kamenetzki took the name Michael Ugo Stille in partial tribute to him. Stille's obituary in the (London) Independent, June 12, 1995, called him "one of the most famous Italian journalists of the last fifty years and one of the best editors of Italy's most authoritative newspaper, the Corriere della Sera of Milan. In Italy, he was recognized as the best of the Italian correspondents in the United States and the key point of reference for anyone wishing to understand that country."

"avoid or postpone": ST to AB, New York, December 30 [1957], SSF.

He was "enjoying it a lot" Ruth Nivola confused Claire's book with the one ST made for her son, Pietro.

He reserved the letter E: I am grateful to Claire Nivola for allowing me to see the ABCedarian, which is in her private collection of works by ST.

"yanked her out of Cornell": Alexander Stille, interview, January 6, 2009. Stille refers to the New Bauhaus School funded by Walter Paepcke that lasted one year, 193738, after which it became first the School of Design (1939) and then the Inst.i.tute of Design (1944).

Their friends tried not to notice: Priscilla Morgan remembered such parties at the Weiner house and the Betty Parsons Gallery, to name just two. She recalled conversations with Rene Bouche and Richard Lindner when they all expressed sadness over HS's determined stoicism and ST's rude disregard for her feelings.

"the terror that grips the shoulders": ST wrote this on "Sunday, May 19, 1991," YCAL, Box 75, after a visit to HS. He said she had it "during my tenure," which was the expression he used for the years they lived together as a married couple.

The news that the Roman family: Lica Roman wrote a memoir of the years when she and her family were trying to leave Romania. SSF has prepared an English translation, unpublished as of 2011.

"managed to slip out": Alexander Lindey to ST, February 14, 1957, YCAL, Box 7.

"They leave on September 1st": M & R Steinberg to ST, August 26, 1957, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

"through an exchange of favors": ST to HS, September 8, 1957, AAA.

In Nice, his parents were "frantic": Much of this correspondence, dated September 3 through 27, is in Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

"a duty, a responsibility": ST to AB, October 2 [1957], SSF.

He was in New York: Moritz Steinberg to HS and ST, September 25, 1957, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

"very cute": Rosa Steinberg to HS, September 22, 1957, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

"the different generations": Lica and Ilie (Rica) Roman to ST, October 9, 1957, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.

On their own they made: Lica Roman to ST, November 1957, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 8.