Steinberg before STEINBERG
Lecture by Mario Tedeschini Lalli, Rome (Italy)

In this presentation Mario Tedeschini Lalli, Italian journalist and scholar of 20th century history, tells the story of Saul Steinberg, before he became STEINBERG, the majuscules with which he signed his name to the art most people know, using some of his public art, some of his clandestine art, some of his personal art and – yes – some of his top secret art.

The art of Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) was arguably one of the most recognizable for the US public from the mid-1940s until his death in 1999. Much of Steinberg’s best-known work appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, but he also produced a larger body of drawings, paintings, and sculptures for gallery and museum exhibitions. His work cannot be fixed to one style or school. Though he is sometimes mistakenly called a cartoonist or illustrator, he was never less than a full-fledged artist. His life was as distinctive as his art, and as hard to pinpoint and define – it certainly did not help that he considered “autobiography—the last refuge of the scoundrel.” He would never divulge much about his life and what he did say was often misremembered or misrepresented; his tales almost became part of his artistic creations. Instead of self-revelatory disclosures, he hid details of autobiography in his art, where the casual observer could not detect them – unless, of course, they were already aware of them. An intellectual labyrinth by a master of labyrinths.