Attempted Bloggery: Pace Gallery

Showing posts with label Pace Gallery. Show all posts

Saturday, February 15, 2020

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″

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Saul Steinberg

Attempted Bloggery's Second Class Index

03169

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Saul Steinberg: Three New Yorkers

The great Saul Steinberg never learned to paint clouds.

--David Apatoff

"Steinberg's Clouds"

Illustration Art blog post for May 3, 2010

http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2010/05/steinbergs-clouds.html

There are a couple of late pictures of California churches in which the structures seem so monumental and eternal that the rambunctious life around them is like a puff of air, and even the sky (his skies are very important and most of them seem to embody something special: maybe truth and beauty?) and the rest of nature seem trivialized.

--Red Grooms

"The World According to Steinberg," Review of Saul Steinberg's The Discovery of America

The New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1992

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/06/books/the-world-according-to-steinberg.html?scp=7&sq=red%20grooms%20saul%20steinberg&st=nyt&pagewanted=1

Sometimes Saul Steinberg's unusual treatment of the sky can be overwhelmed by the flashier elements of his compositions. Three New Yorkers is an offbeat 1976 drawing of his that I see as a grotesque elaboration on his paper masks. It allows us to see not only the three said New Yorkers as they apparently wish to present themselves, but also the Chrysler Building and the Guggenheim Museum, all through the uniquely transformative eyes of Steinberg. It is always a privilege to be invited into his fantastical—and, in this case, eccentric—world. And, yes, there are amazing clouds too, but here you would be forgiven for overlooking them at first glance.

This piece is coming up for auction on September 28 at sothebys.com. The estimate is $15,000-$20,000. Bidding starts at $10,000, although the reserve is apparently higher.