The great Saul Steinberg never learned to paint clouds.
—David Apatoff"Steinberg's Clouds"Illustration Art blog post, May 3, 2010There 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
Illustration writer David Apatoff and artist Red Grooms are actually a lot closer in their opinion of Saul Steinberg's clouds and skies than one might think from these two disparate quotations. Apatoff's line is more of an opening teaser than a final pronouncement; what he really means is that ". . . Steinberg worked in a state of perpetual inquiry and never found a formula for clouds that satisfied him for long." No argument there. In his conclusion, Apatoff greatly admires the variety of approaches Steinberg has to clouds, and he ends his post with "I tell you friends, when Steinberg calls clouds into being, it's a goddamn exhilarating thing." I agree, and, I'm pretty sure, so would Grooms.
Steinberg's Giant Postcard (1967) came to auction two days ago in Paris and made an impressive showing for a watercolor with no figures, some rolling dark green terrain, and then mostly—you guessed it—clouds.
 |
| Saul Steinberg Giant Postcard, 1967 |
 |
| Saul Steinberg Giant Postcard, 1967 |
 |
| Saul Steinberg Artcurial listing accessed April 1, 2023 |
04282
