Tireless contributor David from Manhattan reports on a 1966 catalogue from the Sidney Janis Gallery of New York that includes the Saul Steinberg work Art Lovers sold just last week at Swann Galleries. He writes:
1966 was a very good year for Saul Steinberg, beginning with a hugely successful show at Galerie Maeght in Paris. But then, all through the summer and early fall, he prepared for an exhibition with Sidney Janis. According to his biographer, Deirdre Bair, Steinberg compared his labor to "an exam in a French Lycée." But it paid off. The 11 x 8 1/2" catalogue lists 76 works, with only 20 illustrated, all in black-and-white, and not particularly well-reproduced, though Art Lovers in the number 10 spot was given a two-page spread at the midpoint as compensation. But buyers were not deterred by the listless reproductions. A number of his pictures involved viewing or creating works of art, and this turned out to be rather prescient. Even allowing for exaggeration and rounding off of numbers, Steinberg happily wrote to Aimé Maeght: "I sold 80 pictures at respectable prices—even more and at higher prices than Paris. Naturally this gives me great pleasure."Naturally. Steinberg hadn't had a show in Manhattan in thirteen years, and perhaps art buyers were getting impatient. 1966 was also the year the artist received sage advice on the art of copyright from his Hungarian lawyer, Alexander Lindey, who not so coincidentally was an author of a textbook on copyright law. Inside the front cover is a great deal of white space, with only "© 1966 By Saul Steinberg" in tiny print at top. Steinberg had listened, even if he didn't borrow Lindey's book. The list of works in this show, with some titles familiar, and others intriguing, makes one hungry for another Steinberg exhibition.
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| Front cover |
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| 11. Dealers |
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| Back cover Ariadne (large detail) |
Ariadne (1966) today resides in the North Carolina Museum of Art. Here's the full image:
Note: Today's words and images are provided by David from Manhattan, to whom once again I offer my sincere thanks. This is his sixty-fourth contribution to the blog.
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