Saul Steinberg: A Biography Part 21

"almost all of them thieves": R & S Outtakes. The Marcovic family emigrated to Israel. Their name is written also as Marcovici in some of the family correspondence translated as Romanian letters, SSF. Reference is also to R & S, p. 17.

he was content to pore over them: HS, interview, May 8, 2007; ST, "Wartime Diary" (SSF renamed it "Journal, 194042"), now in YCAL, Box 89, Folder "Tortoreto 194042." Also, drawing bearing the date August 19, 1941, Ciudad Trujillo, YCAL, Box 20. Information also comes from interviews and conversations with HS throughout 2007.

"thinking angel": R & S, p. 12; see also SSF 273638.

"suffering profession": c.u.mmings, "ST interviews."

"a man on horseback": "How I Draw," R & S Outtakes. Ferdinand I was king of Romania from 1914 to 1917. ST depicted the king, the queen, and their entourage in the 1966 drawing "Strada Palas," WMAA, p. 133.

"Remember," he instructed himself: Geert Mak, In Europe: Travels Through the 20th Century, trans. Sam Garrett (New York: Pantheon, 2007), p. 767: "Bucharest is a city of more than two million inhabitants, with an estimated 300,000 stray dogs. You see dogs everywhere, alone or in packs."

Steinberg heard his mother and aunts: ST to HS, May 10, 1944, AAA. See also S:I, "Bucharest in 1924," p. 180.

Critics compared him: These comparisons appear in a far-ranging series of taped conversations with Grace Glueck, which were eventually edited into her article "The Artist Speaks: Saul Steinberg," Art in America, NovemberDecember 1970, pp. 11017. A copy of what appears to be the original tape transcripts is in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution. Several revisions by Glueck and ST were made later, and copies are in YCAL, Box 16, Folder "16: Correspondence 1967," and YCAL, Box 8, Folder 28.

"Too many geniuses": Sergio Zavoli, "Saul Steinberg: Intervista Televisiva con Sergio Zavoli," electronic file, Italian television network RAI, 1967. For comparisons with Klee, see also S:I, p. 82 and p. 236, n. 1; p. 168 and p. 245, n. 113.

"To solve once and for all": Glueck, copy of original transcript of unedited tape, pp. 1920, AAA.

"every explanation": Ibid., p. 12.

"a line is a thought that went for a walk": Among them were HS, interview, November 13, 2007; Dore Ashton, telephone conversation, February 22, 2010; Dr. Mark Podwal, interview, July 10, 2008; Christo and Jeanne-Claude, interview, August 9, 2007. The actual quotation is "Die Linie ist ein Punkt, der spazieren geht" (a line is a dot that went for a walk).

"the same one I acquired back then": Glueck, early revised and edited transcript of "The Artist Speaks," YCAL, Box 8, Folder 28.

Steinberg's earliest extant drawing: The kindergarten photo is reproduced in S:I, p. 84; the photo itself is in YCAL, Box 20, Folder "Early Photos."

Both are charcoal: ST always insisted that he had never had formal training in art; he told Grace Glueck, "I never went to an art school or anything" (original transcript, p. 20), but he did attend drawing cla.s.ses in high school and also had architectural drawing cla.s.ses at the Politecnico, as discussed in subsequent chapters.

One is a six-sided pyramid: The pyramid is on a charcoal sheet, framed (probably by ST as an adult), 9 x 11 in. on laid paper, now in SSF; the portrait of Moritz is 38 x 28 cm (sight), framed, done before ST went to Milan in 1932, kept by his parents, and either given to or inherited by Lica Roman. It hung in her house in Cachan, France, and is now in the collection of Daniela Roman. Unfortunately, neither drawing is of reproduction quality.

an aura about the portrait: HS, conversations throughout 20078; Norman and Cella Manea interview, June 11, 2008; ST to AB, particularly letters written between 1996 and 1999; ST's diary writings, YCAL, Boxes 75 and 95.

"pure Dada": Dore Ashton, telephone conversation, February 22, 2010, in regard to a typed early version of the article "What I Draw Is Drawing," in Saul Steinberg, 7 Febrero7 Abril 2002 (Valencia, Spain, Inst.i.tute Valencia d'Art Modern), English translation, pp. 152ff.

CHAPTER THREE: A WUNDERKIND WITHOUT KNOWING IT.

Saul liked to tell the story: HS, interview, April 18, 2007.

"a culturally born Levantine": Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical, p. 260.

he too had to get out: Norman Manea, "Made in Romania," and ST in conversation with Karl Meyer, then a reporter for the Was.h.i.+ngton Post, who was interviewing him for the feature story "Steinberg Looks at Was.h.i.+ngton," October 1978; also Karl Meyer, interview, September 1, 2007.

an outsider and an observer: These two words occur frequently throughout his correspondence with AB and were often told to me in interviews and conversations by (among many others) HS, Ruth Nivola, IF, Norman Manea, and Benjamin Sonnenberg.

He received no feeling of normality: R & S Outtakes, and mss. pages in YCAL, Box 38.

"sewer" of a country: ST to AB, unpublished portion of letter dated May 31, 1982, SSF.

"most important and strongest memories": Jacques Dupin, "Steinberg 1971," in Steinberg: Derriere le Miroir, no. 192, June 1971.

It was only then: ST to AB, unpublished portion of letter dated June 12, 1986; R & S Outtakes and YCAL, Box 38. As these letters have only been privately translated into English but not published by SSF, I do not distinguish here between the published and unpublished portions in the Italian book, because I have no way of knowing what may or may not eventually appear in an English publication.

"Levantine people": c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA.

"Paris of the Balkans": Behr, Kiss the Hand, p. 75.

a study in contrasts: Mak, In Europe, p. 771; Behr, Kiss the Hand, p. 75.

"a mixture of honey and s.h.i.+t": ST to AB, February 27, 1985. ST was referring to Philip Glazebook's Journey to Kars, which he praised.

Strada Palas 9: ST to AB, April 15, 1989. ST was mesmerized by television pictures of the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods by the dictator Ceausescu.

"a society with no mysteries": R & S, p. 21; c.u.mmings, "ST Interview"; HS, conversations, April 18, 2007; Daniela Roman, interview, January 7, 2008.

as an elderly man was moved: ST, diary, May 29, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

Even as a child he recognized: ST, diary, n.d., but follows May 19, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

"identification and denunciation": Manea, "Made in Romania." He made a drawing of himself in the school uniform, originally printed in TNY, "Cousins" portfolio, May 28, 1979; reproduced in Manea's article, and also as LMB 566, 1968 in Saul Steinberg: L'ecriture visuelle, catalogue for the exhibition of the same name at the Musee Tomi Ungerer, Centre International de l'Ill.u.s.tration, November 27, 2009February 18, 2010.

Those children were a hodgepodge: c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA. Also ST to AB, February 3, 1988, where he writes that he is reading the autobiography of Elias Canetti, whose family "held the same ancient prejudices against the Sephardim, who at that time were considered inferior, a prejudice no one has held for sixty years."

"a true native": c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA.

A decrepit American streetcar: Ibid.: "probably from Philadelphia because they always ended up in places like Bucharest when they became obsolete."

It suffused him with shame: HS described these emotions in conversations throughout 2007.

As an adult, Steinberg liked to use the word: c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA.

"an inferno of screams, slaps, toilets!": ST to AB, ca. June 21, 1997: "The professor was named Ciupagea Emil? (almost seventy years ago! The good things must be remembered)."

"extremely sophisticated": c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA.

"part of a civilization": Ibid.

"the minuteness of the German despoliation": Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure 18741920 (New York: MacMillan, 1952), pp. 4067.

"urged and begged": Charles J. Vopicka, Secrets of the Balkans: Seven Years of a Diplomat's Life in the Storm Center of Europe (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1921), pp. 28789.

"whilst one cannot obtain": Quoted in Pakula, The Last Romantic, p. 264.

Steinberg's memory of wartime hunger: ST, diary, n.d., YCAL, Box 75.

"American Jews, bankers, and big businessmen": Pakula, The Last Romantic, pp. 293, 395.

the country was in disarray: Sources for the following discussion include Jelavich, History of the Balkans, vol. 2, pp. 2046; Eugen Weber, "Romania," in Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber, The European Right: A Historical Profile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 54142; Hugh Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe Between the Wars, 191841 (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

"a social cla.s.s revolution": ST to HS, July 15 and 16, 1944, AAA.

"a little like being a black": R & S, p. 3.

the "serious boys": Eugen Campus, "Saul Steinberg, Portrayer of Our Times," Minimum, no. 10 (January 1988); translated from Romanian by Emil Niculescu. Campus became a literary critic, first in Romania and then after his immigration, in Israel. This quotation and information is from the "first set" of Campus articles published as "Iosef Eugen Campus, Deschizand noi orizonturi: nsemnari critice, Israel, 19602001 (Opening New Horizons: Critical Notes, Israel, 19602001) (Libra: Bucharest, 2002), vol. 1, p. 254.

"my real world": All quotations in this paragraph are from Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical, p. 261.

The rigorous curriculum: Mario Tedeschini Lalli, "Descent from Paradise: Saul Steinberg's Italian Years (19331941)," Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, no. 2 (October 2011), pp. 31283, online at: http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=221. I am grateful to MTL, whose formidable research into ST's Italian years, particularly his university studies, supplemented my own 20078 inquiries into the archives of the Politecnico di Milano, Archivio Generale d'Ateneo (AGA), Fondo fascicoli studenti e Registri carriera scholastica, folder "Steinberg Saul," and Steinberg pages of the relevant registro. Among the doc.u.ments are transcripts of ST's coursework at LMB, 192832.

Music was one of his two best subjects: Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical, p. 261.

Despite his high grades: That he scored so high in German is especially surprising, because even though he studied it for four years in the lycee and later at the Politecnico, throughout his life he claimed he could not speak or read the language, although he did admit to knowledge of it in his U.S. Navy papers. He told HS that he "did not know" German (conversations throughout 2007) and Leo Steinberg that he "could not read" German (interview, October 31, 2007). This appears to be another example of ST's habit of saying what suited him at the moment.

He read avidly: ST to AB, March 25, 1988, and September 26,1986.

when he became proficient in Italian: ST to AB, September 25, 1986.

"a language of beggars and policemen": ST to AB, April 23, 1991.

Uncle Harry visited: ST to AB, November 20, 1987. A photograph taken during the visit is in the family photo alb.u.m in possession of Dana Roman, copies in SSF and YCAL, Box 2.

"especially magic": ST, diary, n.d. but follows May 22, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

"I was different": Campus, "Elective Affinities (Conversations with Saul Steinberg)," p. 368.

Two Romanian writers, Miron Costin and Dimitrie Cantemir: A copy of the essay in the original Romanian and the English translation by Emil Niculescu are both in SSF.

"a fict.i.tious history": c.u.mmings, "ST Interview," AAA.

He was shocked by things he had not been taught: Ibid.

It was what Moritz liked best: ST to AB, November 1, 1988.

"without [electric] current": ST to AB, October16, 1985. ST was comparing damage inflicted by a recent hurricane on his East Hampton property to "a return to Bucharest in 1924." HS spoke in telephone conversations, March 19 and 22, 2007, of how she and ST compared their Bucharest experiences. She agreed that some of the worst privations were experienced around 192224 but said that ST also spoke of enduring similar privations after the move to Strada Just.i.tie.

he painted a telling portrait: "Strada Palas," 1942; ink, pencil, and watercolor on paper, 14 x 21 in., SSF; S:I, cat. 4, pp. 8687.

"wearing a name plate": R & S, p. 3.

CHAPTER FOUR: A SECURE TRADE.

"I accepted a kind of compromise": Campus, "Elective Affinities," pp. 36771.

This was the first-ever rejection: Among the girls was one described only as "Ragazza Mehedinti," in "ST: Handwritten List of Addresses et al, 193241," YCAL, Box 2, Folder "Santo Domingo 1942." Jacques Ghelber, a cousin by marriage who was admitted to the Bucharest School of Architecture, wrote to ST from Tel Aviv, Israel, October 19, 1953, YCAL, Box 8, Romanian letters in folder "Correspondence 1953," joking that he had "more appreciation for Saul's [word not clear; possible translation is skills] than those at the School of Architecture in Bucharest. It's too bad they didn't also undervalue me. Then perhaps I [too] could have become somebody." To date, this is the single most direct comment that explains why ST went to Milan. MTL cites this as a possible reason in Mario Tedeschini Lalli, "Descent from Paradise: ST's Italian Years, 193341," Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish Hisotry, no. 2 (October 2011), pp. 31617 and n. 14; online at http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=221. MTL cites as his source for this possibility Theodor Lavi's entry "Romania" in Numerus Clausus, Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum, Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007), vol. 15, pp. 34142.

"for a young Romanian Jew": ST to Prudence Crowther, included in email to DB, July 22, 2008.

"an interesting, animated time": Arthur Segal, "Die neue Malerei und die Kunstler," Die Action 2 (Berlin, 1912); also in Tom Sundqvist, Dada East: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, n.d.), pp. 24, 187.

No matter how ugly the building: Luminita Machedon and Ernie Scoffham, Romanian Modernism: The Architecture of Bucharest, 19201940 (Cambridge, Ma.s.s.: MIT Press, 1999), unpaginated preface.

"chronicler of Romanian spirituality": Virgil Ierunca, introduction to G. M. Cantacuzino, Scrieri (Paris: Fundatia Regala Universitara Carol I, 1966), p. 9. Quoted also in unpaginated preface by Serban Cantacuzino, "On Being Romanian," in Machedon and Scoffham, Romanian Modernism. G. M. Cantacuzino was also the founder and editor of the annual journal Simetria, subt.i.tled "notebooks of art and criticism" and published between 1939 and 1947. It is unlikely that ST read this influential journal at that time, and he did not have copies of it in his adult library.

He also joined them to hike: ST TO AB, April 2, 1985; Campus, "Elective Affinities: Conversations with ST," Viata Noastr, December 1981, pp. 12, 25.

"rich Jews and Greeks": ST to AB, July 7, 1998.

He always insisted: On August 7, 1998, ST sent AB a photocopy of a cla.s.s photo taken during his last year at the Lycee Basarab, of cla.s.smates who joined him for a trip to "una rovina bizantina di Bucharest," on the back of which he wrote capsule biographies of his friends. For Leventi, whose name he sometimes wrote as "Leventer," ST remembered: "Leventer, ombre perfette, morto 4 anni fa ricco, moglio et figlio fedeli." In ST to AB, July 7, 1998, he wrote that he had forgotten the first name of Paraschevadis, his Greek cla.s.smate. He described Eugen Campus as "the first intellectual of my own age ... who was my friend (more in my mind than in reality)." Campus organized the literary circle at his house, but none of the group wrote anything but short critical presentations. ST said "that's when I first began to understand the importance-which is essential for knowledge-of literature and critical study. The literary critic has the chance to confront concrete values, concretized life concepts." Campus graduated from Bucharest University and became a high school teacher and critic in Romania and later in Israel, where ST visited him starting in the late 1970s. ST and Leventer were cla.s.smates throughout their Bucharest years and their families were neighbors and friends within the local Jewish community. Leventer also graduated from the Regio Politecnico as an architect and had a lucrative and successful career in Bucharest until 1952, when he went first to Vienna and then to Israel before settling in New York on Cambridge Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and then on Park Avenue.

This was where Steinberg first understood: Information that follows is from writings by Eugen Campus, translated by Emil Niculescu for SSF. As I have not read the original Romanian texts, I give the original sources but use only English t.i.tles here: Campus's review of ST's show, "ST: Recent Work," Pace Gallery, New York, October 31November 28, 1987, Minimum no. 10, January 1988; "ST-The Discovery of America Today," Minimum no. 77, August 1993, pp. 6769; "Elective Affinities (Conversations with Saul Steinberg)," pp. 36771, Tel Aviv, December 910, 1981, first published in Viata Noastr, pp. 12, 25.

another Romanian Jew who had been: Constantine I. Emilian, who wrote the first academic study on the Romanian avant-garde in 1931, quoted in Paul Cernat, Avangarda romaneasca si complexul periferiei: primul val (Bucharest: Cartea Romaneasca, 2007).

"young emanc.i.p.ated Jewish writers": Ibid.

the vast majority of the avant-garde: Tom Sandqvist, Dada East: The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire (Cambridge, Ma.s.s.: MIT Press, 2006).

Balkan absurdist writing: Kirby Olson, Andrei Codrescu and the Myth of America (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005), p. 40.

"took pleasure from a city": ST to AB, May 24, 1996.

"gigantic head": ST to AB, August 7, 1998. ST was describing himself as he looked in a photograph of his cla.s.smates.

"timid and taciturn" personality: Campus, "Elective Affinities," Minimum no. 10, January 1988.

each one was "bigger than the next": Sandqvist, Dada East, p. 99.

Steinberg was one of four: In ST's Romanian letters, Perlmutter is always referred to by his nickname.

Steinberg began to think that going abroad: Campus, "Elective Affinities," pp. 36771.

Steinberg's argument for going to the Regio Politecnico: Information that follows is from interviews with Daniela Roman, Stephane Roman, and HS; also from the Romanian letters, cited specifically where appropriate.

What would happen to her: As an adult, ST told friends, interviewers, and correspondents that he had never been called by a diminutive or a nickname, but it was not true, and neither was his similar contention in R & S, p. 19. Within his family he was Sauly, Salitza, Saulica, or some other variant of his given name. In many letters, one or another of these is how his sister, Lica, addresses him.

when it came to Milan: It was a given that he would be accepted, for there was no entrance examination in Italian universities and only a high school diploma and transcript were required.