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This page is about the artist; there is also an investor named Saul Steinberg.

Saul Steinberg (June 15, 1914–May 12, 1999) was a Romanian-born American cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for The New Yorker magazine.

Biography

Steinberg was born in Râmnicu Sărat, Romania. He studied philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest, then later enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano, studying architecture and graduating in 1940. During his years in Milan he was actively involved in the satirical magazine "Bertoldo".

Steinberg was forced to leave Italy after the introduction of anti-Semitic laws in Fascist Italy. He spent a year in the Dominican Republic awaiting a U.S. visa, in the meanwhile, submitting his cartoons to foreign publications. In 1942, The New Yorker magazine sponsored his entry into the United States. During World War II, he worked for military intelligence, stationed in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the wars end, he returned to work for American publications, merging an encyclopedic knowledge of European art with the popular American art form of the cartoon, to pioneer a uniquely urbane style of illustration.

The "View of the World" cover

Steinberg did 85 covers and 1,200 drawings for The New Yorker. His most famous work is its March 29 1976 cover, an illustration titled "View of the World from 9th Avenue," sometimes referred to as "A Parochial New Yorker's View of the World" or "A New Yorker's View of the World," which depicts a map of the world as seen by self-absorbed New Yorkers.

The illustration is split in two, with the bottom half of the image showing Manhattan's 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue, and the Hudson River (appropriately labeled), and the top half depicting the rest of the world. The rest of the United States is the size of the three New York City blocks and is drawn as a square, with a thin brown strip along the Hudson representing "Jersey", the names of five cities (Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Chicago) and three states (Texas, Utah, and Nebraska) scattered among a few rocks for the U.S. beyond New Jersey. The Pacific Ocean, perhaps half again as wide as the Hudson, separates the U.S. from three flattened land masses labeled China, Japan, and Russia.

Cultural legacy

The illustration—humorously depicting New Yorkers' self-image of their place in the world, or perhaps outsiders' view of New Yorkers' self-image—inspired many similar works, including the poster for the 1984 film Moscow on the Hudson; that movie poster led to a lawsuit, Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 663 F. Supp. 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1987), which held that Columbia Pictures violated the copyright that Steinberg held on his work.

References

1. Steinberg's Signatures by Ben Davis, Artnet Magazine
2. Elliott, Janet. "Restoration needed for salvaged 1940s mural". Houston Chronicle, October 8, 2007.

External links

• The Saul Steinberg Foundation, established by the artist's will
• Etchings of Steinberg, from the National Gallery of Art
• The Steinberg Collection from a website owned by The New Yorker

• American cartoonists
• American illustrators
• Copyright case law
• Jewish American writers
• New Yorker cartoonists
• People from Buzău County
• Romanian-Americans
• Romanian Jews
• 1914 births
• 1999 deaths
• Alumni of the Politecnico di Milano