The Juan March Foundation hosts the first complete retrospective of Saul Steinberg in Spain. From October 18 to January 12, visitors enjoy almost 400 pieces that explore the different facets of the Romanian-born artist. Considered one of the most relevant and unclassifiable creators of the mid-20th century, between the 1940s and 1950s he became known for his collaboration with The New Yorker.

Steinberg (June 15, 1914, Sărat, Romania – May 12, 1999, New York City) chose and transformed drawing as a means of artistic expression, using ingenuity to undertake a journey through the cultural scene, passing through both the artistic and literary aspects of the turbulent 20th century. The exhibition will be accompanied by different activities inspired by Saul Steinberg's artistic practice and conversations about the artist and the exhibition.

The Juan March Foundation exhibition includes drawings, murals, collages, paintings, engravings, photographs, artist books and magazines, as many media as those that Saul Steinberg chose to develop a work that resists simple classifications. Linked to American abstract expressionism (Pollock, De Kooning, Rothko and Ad Reinhardt), Steinberg chose drawing as a fundamental means of artistic expression.

This monographic exhibition has the participation of the Saul Steinberg Foundation of New York, the main source for research into the artist's work, which has donated more than one hundred pieces by the artist. In addition, the exhibition has collaborated with other international institutions that have received the artist's legacy, such as The Art Institute of Chicago, the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense of Milan and the Centre Pompidou of Paris.

Bombardeo, Núremberg por Saul Steinberg, c. 1945. Tinta sobre papel. 38,1 × 59,1 cm. The Estate of Michael K. Vlock. Fotografía por Jenny Gorman. Fotografía cortesía por The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.
Bombing, Nuremberg by Saul Steinberg, c. 1945. Ink on paper. 38.1 × 59.1 cm. The Estate of Michael K. Vlock. Photograph by Jenny Gorman. Photograph courtesy by The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.

The exhibition has Alicia Chillida as guest curator in a curatorial team formed by Manuel Fontán del Junco, Aida Capa and Francesca Pellicciari as special advisor. It is accompanied by a profusely illustrated catalogue, which includes historical texts, such as the one published by Harold Rosenberg, where he described him as a "writer of images" in his first monographic exhibition in 1978 at the Whitney Museum in New York, and essays by other researchers such as Sheila Schwartz or María Teresa Muñoz.

A Writer Who Draws
Born in Romania, Steinberg trained as an architect in Italy during his youth. Growing anti-Semitism forced him to leave his native country. He fled to Italy, where Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws forced him to leave Europe. Without documentation and with difficulties, he managed to reach the United States, where he began to collaborate with The New Yorker, a professional relationship that lasted 50 years.

The mass media were decisive in the dissemination of Steinberg's work, who entered American homes as a keen observer and shook up their ways of thinking.

“Given his attraction to pen, ink and pencil, and the complex intellectual nature of his creations, one might think Steinberg is a kind of writer, though he is the only one of his kind,” Rosenberg said. “Steinberg has devised dialogues between the verbal and the visual that include wordplay with multiple levels of verbal and visual meaning, and which have led to comparisons with James Joyce.”

Taxis de Nueva York por Saul Steinberg, 1977. Collage, tinta, lápiz y acuarela sobre papel. 57,8 × 34,9 cm. Colección Carol y Douglas Cohen. Fotografía cortesía por The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.
New York Taxis by Saul Steinberg, 1977. Collage, ink, pencil and watercolor on paper. 57.8 × 34.9 cm. Carol and Douglas Cohen Collection. Photograph courtesy by The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.

Steinberg chose and transformed drawing as a means of artistic expression, but his work goes beyond that: the ingenuity and play of images are transferred to other less popular media, but key to his production, such as painting, graphics, collage, photomontage, and even “drawing” in three dimensions. His murals, along with his New Yorker covers and some of his most famous series, are included in this retrospective.

In 1946, his work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York along with that of other artists such as Isamu Noguchi and Robert Motherwell. His work has been recognized both in the media and in leading contemporary art museums.

"I do not belong entirely to the world of art, nor to that of cartoons, nor to that of magazines, so the art world does not know very well where to place me", wrote Steinberg at the time.

El museo por Saul Steinberg, c. 1949. Tinta sobre papel. 47 × 35,9 cm. Colección Carol y Douglas Cohen. Fotografía cortesía por The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.
The Museum by Saul Steinberg, c. 1949. Ink on paper. 47 × 35.9 cm. Carol and Douglas Cohen Collection. Photograph courtesy by The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.

An admirer of Nikolai Gogol and his theatre of the absurd, Steinberg was in tune with some contemporary artists and intellectuals such as Samuel Beckett or Alberto Giacometti and with some exiled Romanians such as Emil Cioran, Constantin Brancusi or Eugène Ionesco, with whom he shared wit and intelligence. Much of his work can be situated in that space between the stage and the book.

"Steinberg was a wanderer because of his biography: Jewish, a draughtsman trained as an architect, prisoner and emigrant. This tangled life line is what draws his character and gives rise to the sign: a sign that moves between signs."

Alicia Chillida, Guest Curator.

Saul Steinberg. Sin título, 1963. Tinta sobre papel. 52 × 37 cm. Colección particular. Fotografía cortesía por The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.
Saul Steinberg. Untitled, 1963. Ink on paper. 52 × 37 cm. Private collection. Photograph courtesy by The Saul Steinberg Foundation VEGAP, Madrid, 2024.

The critic Harold Rosenberg said that Steinberg emerged among post-war American artists and revolutionised painting and sculpture by introducing the new theme of the “mystery of individual identity”. This is confirmed by one of his most famous series on the identity of the immigrant, which is on display in this exhibition: The Rubrics.

The city and its immensity, the architecture of New York and his keenness as an observer are some of the symbols and themes that recur in Saul Steinberg’s work. The satire of a decadent America is reflected in his Las Vegas series, while his interest in paradoxes and visual games is evident in Art Viewers, a large mural that is also on display in this exhibition.

Exposición: Saul Steinberg, artista. Fotografía cortesía por Fundación Juan March.
Exhibition: Saul Steinberg, artista. Photograph courtesy by Fundación Juan March.

The Saul Steinberg Foundation
As part of this exhibition, the Juan March Foundation has received a donation of a total of 115 works from the Saul Steinberg Foundation in New York. These include drawings, photographs, paintings, graphic works and objects, as well as posters and books. Other international institutions have received part of the Steinberg Foundation's collection, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

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Artists
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Curatorial Team
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Guest curator.- Alicia Chillida.
Special advisor.- Francesca Pellicciari.
Director of Museums and Exhibitions, Juan March Foundation.- Manuel Fontán del Junco.
Head of Exhibition Project at the Juan March Foundation.- Aida Capa.
Curatorial assistant.- María Zorrilla.

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Collaborators
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Organization and coordination.- Aida Capa, María Zorrilla.
Insurance, transport and installation coordination.- Marta Ramírez, Registry, Juan March Foundation.
Museography.- Ángela Juarranz Studio and Art Department, Juan March Foundation.
Installation and lettering.- SIT Grupo Empresarial.
Graphic design.- Guillermo Nagore, Alfredo Casasola.
Framing.- Decograf.
Lighting.- Carlos Alzueta.
Restoration.- El Taller, S. C.: Lourdes Rico, Celia Martínez, Victoria de las Heras; Laura Suela de la Llave.
Transport.- SIT Grupo Empresarial.
Customer service and mediation.- Juan March Foundation and MagmaCultura.

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Organisation
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Fundación Juan March, Madrid.

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Dates
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From October 18 to January 12, 2025.
Monday to Saturday and holidays.- 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Sundays.- 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Exhibition closed.- December 24, 25 and 31. January 1 and 6.

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Location
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Castelló 77, 28006 Madrid. Spain.

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Photography
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Saul Steinberg. Romanian-born artist, born in Râmnicu Sărat in 1914 and died in the United States in 1999. He studied philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest and later studied architecture at the Milan Polytechnic, graduating in 1940.

In 1936, while studying architecture, Steinberg began contributing cartoons to the Italian humor newspaper Bertoldo twice a week, and soon became one of the paper's most popular artists. Forced to leave Italy in the 1940s by the establishment of anti-Semitic laws, he received his architecture degree in 1940 and began the long and anxious process of finding refuge in another country.

Arrested by the police, he spent six weeks in an internment camp. He was finally able to leave Italy in 1941, with a visa for the Dominican Republic. After a year in Ciudad Trujillo (now Santo Domingo), he received his American visa, arriving in New York in early July 1942, where he began contributing to The New Yorker magazine.

Saul Steinberg is best known for his drawings published on the covers and insides of The New Yorker magazine, a close collaboration that lasted nearly six decades and brought Steinberg into American homes and shook up the ways of thinking of American society. His drawings, known for their spare elegance and incisive visual jokes, were based entirely on pictorial graphics and were keyed to the magazine's audience. Steinberg turned the magazine page into a place for art.

Famed worldwide for giving graphic definition to the postwar age, Saul Steinberg had one of the most remarkable careers in American art. While renowned for the covers and drawings that appeared in The New Yorker for nearly six decades, he was equally acclaimed for the drawings, paintings, prints, collages, and sculptures he exhibited internationally in galleries and museums.

Steinberg crafted a rich and ever-evolving idiom that found full expression through these parallel yet integrated careers.

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Published on: November 10, 2024
Cite: "A writer who draws. “Saul Steinberg, artista” exhibition in the Juan March Foundation" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/writer-who-draws-saul-steinberg-artista-exhibition-juan-march-foundation> ISSN 1139-6415
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