Betty Parsons's Copy of The Art of Living by Saul Steinberg

Saul Steinberg's collection The Art of Living dates from 1949. This copy is dedicated somewhat cryptically to his gallerist Betty Parsons.

Photo by Joe Petro III

Photo by Joe Petro III

Note:  Thanks again to Joe Petro III for providing these images. Two more of his Steinberg books dedicated to Betty Parsons will be showing up here very soon.

If you have access to a personalized book from Saul Steinberg akin to this one, why not submit a scan or two?

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P. K. Thomajan's Copy of Saul Steinberg's The Art of Living

P. K. Thomajan was the author of essays and books about design. One imagines he was delighted by Saul Steinberg's drawing of a dog in his copy of The Art of Living (1949). Could one hope to master the art of living without a dog? If memory serves, Steinberg himself kept a cat. At any rate, the inscription and drawing were made in the year of publication. The photographs shown here appear courtesy of A Friend of the Blog.

Note:  Once again, my thanks to A Friend of the Blog for documenting this wonderful copy of the book.

Uniquely signed, inscribed, or drawn upon copies of The Art of Living (or other books) by Saul Steinberg always make welcome submissions to this blog.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Saul Steinberg

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Dogs

Attempted Bloggery's Index

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Saul Steinberg: The Art of Bow Hunting?

What could be better than a nice copy of Saul Steinberg's 1949 collection The Art of Living? How about a copy with an original Steinberg drawing? There's one now on AbeBooks, with an $1850 price tag, or about one-hundred times the price of the least expensive copy of the book on the site.

But what sort of a drawing is it exactly? It's surely not typical of Steinberg. There's no dedication, no inscription, no signature, just a date: "1954/New Year." So why was it created and to whom was it given? The drawing appears to be an unmanned crossbow shooting a turkey through with an arrow. There are recoil lines that look a bit like the numerals 911 on the left and a letter a. on the right reminiscent of any number of indecipherable Steinberg diagrams. The seller speculates that this might be "a rebus of some sort" as if a Steinberg drawing is a mystery to be solved.

If it is, I can't solve it alone. Is this drawing meant as an inside joke? As a gift to a bow hunter? Is it indeed by Steinberg himself or does it merely incorporate a few disparate elements of his style? I'm not going to pronounce judgment here. But I'll happily entertain reader opinions below in the comments section.

Saul SteinbergThe Art of Living. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949.
Drawing inscribed "1954/New Year."

Saul Steinberg
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved October 1, 2018

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=11841986492&searchurl=kn%3DSaul%2BSteinberg%2BThe%2BArt%2Bof%2BLiving%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title2

Note:  Books with original souvenir drawings by Saul Steinberg aren't all that common, but then they're not all that rare either. Readers with access to such drawings in such books are urged to take scans or photos and forward them here for widespread consumption.



Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Saul Steinberg

Books with Original Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Turkey of an Index

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