Saul Steinberg: Second Class (Packaged)

The art market continues to validate the unique status of Saul Steinberg. His still life Second Class (Packaged) from 1980 was offered without reserve in an online auction that opened on February 4, 2020. The rather anemic estimate of $2,000 to $3,000 for this colored pencil drawing on paper seemed calculated to generate hopeful bidder interest, and that it did. By the time the auction closed, though, the price realized was a robust $16,250.

Saul Steinberg
Second Class (Packaged), 1980

Saul Steinberg
Christie's Interiors NY
Online February 4-13, 2020

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/interiors-ny/saul-steinberg-american-1914-1999-150/80557

Saul Steinberg
Second Class (Packaged), 1980

Three separate labels on the back of the original art give the title as Fourth Class (Art Materials) from 1980. The drawing's online sale history would seem to confirm this title. In fact, Christie's originally listed the still life with this title from the labels, then changed it to Second Class (Packaged). What happened?

The concept of Steinberg's four "classes" of still life was enumerated by Sarah Cowan in 2014, reviewing "Saul Steinberg: 100th Anniversary Exhibition" at the Pace Gallery. A Steinberg pencil drawing from 1980-81 including all four of these classes confirms that the Christie's Steinberg represents the second and not the fourth class of still life. The supposition, then, is that Steinberg's Second Class (Packaged) left Pace Gallery some forty years ago with the wrong label or, less plausibly, that a buyer bought more than one and the labels were switched at the framers.

https://hyperallergic.com/155375/saul-steinberg-decodes-the-symbols-of-society/

Saul Steinberg
Still Life (1980–81)
Graphite on folded paper, 14 ½″ x 23″

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Saul Steinberg

Attempted Bloggery's Second Class Index

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MoCCA Fest 2018: Not Waving But Drawing by John Cuneo

It is said that Bach could improvise at or above the level of his musical compositions. John Cuneo, I would argue, produces seemingly spontaneous sketchbook drawings that are at least as intriguing  as his finished illustrations. It's a good bet that the artist's sketchbook drawings are unlike anything else you have encountered. They are intensely personal yet broadly relatable, arcane yet accessible, erotic yet grotesque, morbid yet hilarious. To me, they somehow recall the sketches of Heinrich Kley and Auguste Rodin in their technical prowess and ability to surprise, yet they have an esthetic and a character that is all their own. And now we have a book full of 'em!

John Cuneo
Not Waving But Drawing:  Dark Thoughts, Lightly Rendered
Seattle:  F.U. Press, 2016

Signed and personalized with a drawing by John Cuneo

Note:  David Apatoff's unsurpassed Illustration Art blog is as fine a place as any to learn more about the work of John Cuneo. He always loved larking.

This week's posts are devoted to the fascinating items I collected at MoCCA Fest 2018.


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John Cuneo

MoCCA Arts Festival

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Uncensored Index

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Album Review: Bach Cantatas, Vol. 16

Bach: Cantatas, Vol 16 (BWV 194, 119) /Bach Collegium Japan (1999)
Masaaki Suzuki

If you were living in the vicinity of, let us say, Leipzig in 1723 and you wished to celebrate the inauguration of, perhaps, a church organ or, more correctly in this case, an actual church, and then if you were also fortunate enough to have a lot of money, you could go to the Cantor of St. Thomas, one Johann Sebastian Bach, and commission a cantata for public performance. That indeed is the origin of BWV 194, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest," apparently reworked from a lost secular original.

Bach was also commissioned to write a cantata annually for the Leipzig council elections, and BWV 119, "Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn," is his first such work, also from 1723. Bach wrote a great many sacred cantatas, and somehow these, like so many others, are of an exceedingly high caliber. Masaaki Suzuki leads the Bach Collegium Japan in a superb performance.

 J. S. Bach:

Was des Höchsten Glanz erfüllt

BWV 194

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