Saul Steinberg: Illuminations at the Dulwich Picture
Gallery
By Nicholas Garland,
Telegraph.co.uk 02.12.08
Telegraph cartoonist Nicholas Garland
reports on a new exhibition of the work of Saul Steinberg, the
illustrator famous for his picture of the world seen from 9th
Avenue in New York
Everybody knows Saul Steinberg's New Yorker
cover drawing of the world seen from 9th Avenue. It is as brilliant
as the famous map of the London Underground. Neither describes the
proportion or relative positions of anything literally, yet both
can be understood at a glance.
Saul Steinberg: A collection in
pictures
From 9th Avenue you see the Hudson River and
beyond it, the mighty spread of the USA, Canada to the north,
Mexico to the south, and far away, across the Pacific Ocean, China,
Japan and Russia. The map says: These New Yorkers - they know they
are the centre of the world.
From 9th Avenue to the Hudson River
and beyond
I once called him the greatest doodler since
the dawn of time. I am sorry now because there is something focused
and deliberate about his work.
He took himself very seriously. He had no
doubts about his own excellence. His drawings have a know-all air
about them. He addresses us from somewhere up there.
This quality became more obvious as he grew
older, more famous and even more confident - a quality he never
lacked, by the way. It takes a deep well of confidence to conquer a
world doing something entirely your own; not even to tip your hat
at the big torpedoes of the cartoon world, and, like a benign Pied
Piper, take an entire readership with you, takes a lot of
chutzpah.
Steinberg was born in Romania
in 1914. But the Romanians threw him away because
he was a Jew. By 1938 he was living in Italy, the year the Italians
passed the first anti-Semitic laws. They threw him away too.
After much travelling and many adventures,
including being returned to Italy and being interned, Steinberg got
a visa to the United States. In June 1942 he arrived in Miami,
applied for citizenship and registered for the draft. America did
not throw him away. They noticed, and approved of, the new kid on
the block. He had begun his long marriage to The New
Yorker - his first cartoon was published there in 1941 -
before he stepped ashore.
In 1945 he designed his first Christmas card
for the Museum of Modern Art. His career
had taken off immediately and it flew. He became rich and famous.
He was an intellectual. It is clear from his sketchbooks that ideas
buzzed and collided in his mind the whole time.
His art is the analysis and resolution of this
state of affairs. If this sounds a bit daunting, it isn't. His work
is seductive, comic and beautiful. In the chaos and confusion of
this world, his drawings are calm retreats.
Steinberg died in 1999 aged
85 and he is now posthumously being honoured by a
major touring retrospective exhibition, currently at the
Dulwich Picture Gallery. As an introduction to
this fine artist, the exhibition could not be improved. From his
earliest playful line drawings to his last, more sombre work, each
stage of his career is represented and his love for his adopted
country celebrated.
He may have been born in Romania but he is
American, through and through. His optimism is American, his jokes
are American. He delighted in America.
Joel Smith, the author of the
beautiful catalogue to this exhibition, raises an interesting
question: why is it that the work of such an internationally
recognised genius is not found in any general survey of modern
art?
Smith returns to this question a number of
times, giving several partial explanations. He points out that
Steinberg's work is on paper, is too small and too diverse to be
categorised. Steinberg did not opt for either the respectable or
the vulgar but gave both equal value and so on.
These remarks make sense, but do not answer
the question. I asked my Telegraph cartoonist colleague Matt what
he thought and he added this formulation: all comic art is about
something, it expresses ideas and attitudes. Its purpose is to
argue as well as to entertain. Fine art just is. Therefore, the
impact of comic art is at its greatest the first time you look at
it, whereas with fine art, you can return to a favourite work many
times and it will grow and develop with you over a lifetime.
Matt added that to get from comic art to fine
art requires a leap across a chasm, or at least a ditch that
separates the two. It seems the question has no answer, and that
all attempts simply throw up further questions, such as: what
about Paul Klee? Or where is the chasm
between Daumier's comic art and his fine
art?
The question remains hanging in the air.
Steinberg calls himself "a writer who draws" and it is a neat
description. Those who knew him called him "a world-class noticer".
He saw drawings in the streets and interiors and in the countryside
around him. Sometimes the writer and the draughtsman get
wonderfully mingled.
There is a drawing of Broadway in which the
word "Trash" is shown as big as a city block. On the word
are scrawled more words: "Terrific", "Wow!", "Dazzling",
while traffic and pedestrians throng the street and sidewalk.
He loved to use words in drawings; another
street scene is made up of the looming word "Here", while a bright
yellow speeding "Now" flashes past.
I read somewhere that an immigrant arrives in
New York and five minutes later he or she is a New Yorker.
Steinberg visited Europe frequently but America was his subject. He
was a phenomenal noticer and a peerless draughtsman, but that being
so, there is something surprising about him - he doesn't seem to
have noticed his millions of black fellow-citizens. His America is
white, apart from a few pantomime redskins.
In November 2008 this feels like a gap. I
wouldn't try to make anything of it - I'm just saying.
'Saul Steinberg:
Illuminations' is at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, until Feb
15