Saul Steinberg’s ‘Illuminations’ Wraps Up National Tour At Vassar College Nov. 2

 

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Saul Steinberg, “Techniques at a Party,” 1953, ink, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper, 14½ by 23 inches. The Saul Steinberg Foundation, New York.

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SAUL STEINBERG ‘ILLUMINATIONS’ WRAPS UP NATIONAL TOUR AT VASSAR COLLEGE NOV. 2, w/1 cut

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POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — “Saul Steinberg: Illuminations,” a major retrospective of the famed The New Yorker artist, will conclude its national tour at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, November 2–February 24. An opening reception and lecture will be Friday, November 2, at 5 pm.

An artist whose magic lit up the pages and covers of The New Yorker magazine for six decades is the subject of the major new retrospective exhibition that has returned to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, which organized the exhibition. The exhibit is the first full-scale review of Steinberg’s career, spanning the 1930s to the 1990s.

While Steinberg is best known for his work in The New Yorker, the exhibition also brings to light the prolific and diverse activity for which Steinberg was celebrated from the time he arrived in New York in 1942. It features more than 100 drawings, collages and sculptural assemblages by the artist whom many regard as not only a comic genius but among the greatest draftsmen of the modern era.

“Saul Steinberg: Illuminations” has received wide praise during its national tour, which began in December and will have it final showing here. Earlier, the exhibition was seen at the Morgan Library and Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

“Is there any subject — or object, for that matter — that Saul Steinberg didn’t have at with his sword-like pen?,” wrote Grace Glueck in The New York Times. “The flow of his output amazes in ‘Saul Steinberg: Illumination.’”

Having studied architecture in Milan, where he gained early fame as a cartoonist, in America, Steinberg (1914–1999) became a propagandist, illustrator, fabric and card designer, muralist, fashion and advertising artist, stage designer and tireless creator of image-jammed books.

Until his decision in the 1960s to concentrate his efforts on gallery art and The New Yorker, Steinberg’s sleek, barbed, inventive line was seen — and mimicked — everywhere from highbrow journals to Christmas cards, disseminating the look of Modernism to a popular atomic-age audience.

The exhibition features rarely seen works from the collections of private lenders and The Saul Steinberg Foundation. According to curator Joel Smith, author of the 2005 book Steinberg at the New Yorker (Abrams), “Saul Steinberg’s last American museum retrospective, in 1978, reflected the priorities of a living artist who wanted to be sure the public saw his career as that of a focused, museum-worthy artist.”

Consider “Techniques at a Party,” 1953, as a demonstration of both Steinberg’s artistic mastery and range. In this work of ink, colored pencil and watercolor on paper, Steinberg depicts each partygoer in a different drawing style — be it pointillist, crosshatched, shaded, gestural or outlined — to effectively define the character of that individual.

“He conflates theme and style into one drawing and exemplifies his love for the meta-narrative,” says Mary-Kay Lombino, the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. “The drawing humorously suggests that if these styles were to meet over cocktails, their differences would be no less apparent than those of the typical guests that often find themselves at such social gatherings. The personification of various techniques is an example of one of Steinberg’s common devices — illuminating the artifice in art.”

The catalog for Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, published by Yale University Press, features an introduction by poet and critic Charles Simic and an essay, chronology and object entries by curator Joel Smith. The volume’s more than 300 illustrations include color plates of works in the exhibition and many sketches, never before seen, from the Saul Steinberg Papers at Yale University.

The art center is at 124 Raymond Avenue. For information, www.fllac.vassar.edu or 845-437-5632.