Saul Steinberg: Illuminations

Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Saul Steinberg: Illuminations," at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, & organized at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. 287pp. w/175 color & 135 b&w illustrations. Introduction by Charles Simic. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread/gently perUsed, in FINE condition w/slight age-toning to upper pages edge. "Best known for his barbed and brilliant art for The New Yorker, Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) did much more. He executed public murals, designed fabrics and stage sets, was an inventive collagist and printmaker, and turned his magic touch to the fields of painting, sculpture, advertising, and even wartime propaganda. This is the first comprehensive look at Steinberg's extraordinary contribution to 20th-century art, which was that of a modern-day illuminator, putting word and image in play to create art that spoke to the eyes, and minds, of readers. [] An introduction by poet Charles Simic tracks the origins of Steinberg's darkly comic sensibility in the 'Balkan bazaar' of the artist's native Romania. Joel Smith shows how architectural training and an early rise to fame as a cartoonist in Fascist-era Milan honed Steinberg’s gift for subtle graphic invention, and explores why one of the most visible, prolific, potent, and cosmopolitan careers in postwar American art has so thoroughly evaded serious study. Tracing the evolving motives that underlie Steinberg's multi-layered activity, this handsome volume also raises fundamental questions about the historiography of modernism and the vexed status of 'the middlebrow avant-garde' in an age of museum-bound art. [] Previously unseen sketches, documents, and printed matter from the artist's papers illustrate the essay, career chronology, and entries for 120 objects featured in this important book." [jacket copy] "Saul Steinberg (1914-99) described himself as a 'writer who draws,' thus inspiring curator Smith to characterize Steinberg's brilliantly satiric drawings as 'illuminations,' thus linking his work to illuminated manuscripts and, given Steinberg's love of literature, to a particular favorite, Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations. Smith also explores Steinberg's mission to illuminate the overlooked and the absurd. In the biographical sections of his beautifully crafted critique, Smith affectingly recounts Steinberg's life as a Jew in anti-Semitic Romania and an architecture student in Fascist Milan whose distinctive cartoons served as his ticket out of Nazi Europe and onto the pages of the New Yorker. Both Smith and renowned poet Charles Simic associate Steinberg's fascination with documents with his harrowing refugee experiences, while Simic, a fellow immigrant from the Balkans and a friend of Steinberg's, offers striking insights into the artist's comic sensibility. Both commentators reflect on the great change in Steinberg's work after 1960, as his images turned hallucinatory and nightmarish, his protest against tyranny more intense. As instantly recognizable as Steinberg's kinetic, punning, and slyly skewering art is, there hasn't been a comprehensive Steinberg book in years, making this outstanding volume invaluable in its reclamation of Steinberg's agile, philosophic, and category-defying art."--Donna Seaman, Booklist. Near-pristine & quite hefty coffeetable hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & mostly tight binding, slightly sprung boards, covered in a bright-as-new jacket. Quite presentable & will likely require additional postage/insurance to get to you safely; please inquire with your specific interest & destination. FYI: see also my listing RUB2483 for the Bound Galley of Deirdre Bair's biography SAUL STEINBERG.…