Saul Steinberg:
Brilliant Witty Inventive Cerebral
June 7 – October 5, 2024
Saul Steinberg: Brilliant Witty Inventive Cerebral is drawn from the museum’s collection of the artist’s works, a gift of the Saul Steinberg Foundation. The ten prints, four drawings, and one watercolor, created between 1965 and 1984, represent many of the playful and intriguing juxtapositions of subjects, styles, and inventive graphic means he is recognized for.
Saul Steinberg (b. Romania 1914, d. New York 1999) is known worldwide for his artworks and illustrations that were reproduced in The New Yorker magazine. From the 1940s until the late 1990s, he created over 80 covers and 600 internal drawings and illustrations for the magazine, many of which have since been repeatedly reprinted.
During a career that spanned seven decades, Steinberg created collages, public murals, theater sets, paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and illustrations. However, he always returned to works on paper, blurring the lines between art and cartoon, and enchanting viewers with his seemingly endless visual vocabulary. Defining drawing as “a way of reasoning on paper,” Steinberg’s graphic vocabulary includes collage, renderings, the juxtaposition of styles, letters and words, the line, and stamps. His remarkable oeuvre is replete with works that could be described as absurd, cerebral, witty, childlike, hilarious, insightful, and a painful critique of contemporary life.
Saul Steinberg: Brilliant Witty Inventive Cerebral will also include a selection of his The New Yorker covers, and photographs of the artist by Inge Morath.
Lead Curator: Dan Mills
Curatorial Intern: Jensen Nida ’24
