2. Saul Steinberg was
born in Râmnicu
Sărat, Buzau,
Romania. He studied
philosophy for a year
at the University of
Bucharest, then later
enrolled at the
Politecnico di Milano,
studying architecture
and graduating in
1940.
5. Saul Steinberg . In View of the World from 9th Avenue, his famous
1976 New Yorker cover, a map delineates not real space but the
mental geography of Manhattanites.
7. Words, numbers, and punctuation marks come
to life as messengers of doubt, fear, or
exuberance;
8. Sheet music lines glide into violin strings,
record grooves, the grain of a wood table, and Through such shifts of meaning from one passage
the smile of a cat. to the next, Steinberg's line comments on its own
transformative nature. In a deceptively simple
Ink on music paper, 14 1/4 x 20 1/8". 1948 drawing, an artist (Steinberg himself) traces
a large spiral. But as the spiral moves downward,
it metamorphoses into a left foot, then a right foot,
then the profile of a body, until finally reaching the
hand holding the pen that draws the line.
9. Main Street--Small Town, section of The Americans mural,American Pavilion, Brussels World's Fair, 1958.
11. Paris is reduced to the flowery curves of an Art Nouveau Métro station and triangular-plan buildings that mark
out wishfully broadened and empty vistas. With no cars in sight and pedestrians confined to the sidewalks,
Steinberg’s Paris emerges as an idealized city seen through its urban architectural styles.
Style and content are coincident in Las Vegas, crayoned in a casino’s garish hues and frenetic barrage of
forms. The gambling woman, nearly all head and pocketbook, hits the jackpot at a slot machine. Her prize,
however, is not money or chips but geometric shapes, while the symbols on the machine are as juvenile as the
dream of instant riches.
Paris Las Vegas
