Fourteen Americans was published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 concurrently with an exhibition. The catalogue is long out of print, but MoMa keeps a PDF of their file copy online. Saul Steinberg was included in the show. It is helpful to see the catalogue's cover as published before seeing how Steinberg embellished a copy for his gallerist Betty Parsons.
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| https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_3196_300062046.pdf |
Steinberg personalized Parsons's copy using a blue-colored pencil. The book's cover has some evidence of exposure to dampness over the years. Still it is quite remarkable what Steinberg has done:
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| Photo by Joe Petro III |
Let's go back to MoMA's file copy. The list of the fourteen artists offers proof, if any were needed, that Steinberg was the penultimate American:
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The title page:
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Note: My thanks again go to Joe Petro III for photographing the cover of Betty Parsons's book. Joe somehow found four of these books dedicated by Steinberg to Parsons and that, my friends, leaves one more for tomorrow.
Saul Steinberg personalized many books to many people. I would be only too pleased to show more of these on Attempted Bloggery.
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