Chapter twenty-two: a biting satire of American life

“If my life, or yours or others”: ST to AB, December 20, 1957.

Rudofsky was the chief designer: Rudofsky was in charge of the interior design and installation of exhibitions for Peter G. Harnden Associates. Correspondence about the mural between ST and BR is in YCAL, Box 8.

his charge was to tell: Felicity D. Scott, “An Eye for Modern Architecture,” in Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky: Life as a Voyage (Basel: Birkhauser, 2007), p. 200.

“pricks our complacency”: Ibid., p. 194.

President Eisenhower was so disturbed: Ibid., p. 203; F. D. Scott, “Encounters with the Face of America,” in Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors, ed. Antoine Picon and Alessandra Ponte (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), pp. 256–91.

Before he began to arrange: “Statement for Murals for Brussels World’s Fair,” YCAL, Box 6.

he had worked on perfecting: ST described the technique in his letters to HS, “Tuesday 24 August” [1954] and n.d. (probably late August 1954), both AAA.

“Bernard full of politics”: ST to HS, March 15, 1958, AAA. For gossip, intrigues, and actual details about the murals, see also B. Rudofsky to ST, January 13 and March 1, 1958, and Peter G. Harndon to ST, March 14, 1958, all in YCAL, Box 8.

“beautiful, like enamel”: ST to HS, March 15 through April 12, 1958, AAA.

In fact, his mural was the greatest: Some of the many reviews include “ST at Brussels,” Newsweek International Edition, April 28, 1958, p. 39; “Americans at Brussels: Soft Sell, Rage & Controversy,” Time, June 16, 1958, pp. 70–75.

“to show how we really”: New York Herald Tribune, April 10, 1958.

“a biting satire”: Pierre Schneider, partial clipping in YCAL, Box 62, folder “Brussels Fair Reviews.”

“ugly dark blue”: ST to HS, “Sunday on Pont royal p.m. April 18, 1958,” AAA.

He urged Hedda not to doubt: HS was still deeply involved in the friendship with the Stilles, and in an undated letter, YCAL, microfilm letters, she tells ST that “Mischa [as they called Ugo] and Elizabeth” took her to “ [Dwight] McDonalds after dinner.”

“Decisions, decisions”: HS to ST, n.d. but just prior to the one quoted above, YCAL, microfilm letters.

He refused an invitation to dinner: Correspondence in YCAL, Box 8.

“suggestions to reconsider”: Correspondence concerning this book is dated April 26, 27, 28, and 30, 1959, and March 25, 1959, YCAL, Box 6.

The project dragged on: D. F. Bradley to R. Delpire, April 39, 1959, YCAL, Box 6.

An unhappy resolution occurred: HS sent a telegram to ST, April 15, 1958, telling him that William Shawn “wants many drawings of Brussels Fair for possibly several double spreads.” On May 11, 1958, she sent ST an undated letter telling him that Shawn refused them all. Apparently, he did not think them suitable for the magazine. YCAL, Box 8.

“I’d be horrible”: ST to HS, “Genova April 27” [1958], AAA.

Then he drove on to Rome: ST received $500 for the front curtain, and Leland Hayward paid him $200 in royalties for the Robbins ballets performed at the Alvin Theater in New York. Correspondence concerning the 1958 Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, is in YCAL, Box 6.

They invited him to name any price: Letter from Gabor Associates of I. M. Pei, on behalf of “Mr. Fassio,” owner of the company, YCAL, Box 6. Carlo Luigi Daneri was the architect and Gigi Fornasetti was the interior designer.

“affamato artista e la sua pottente giaguar”: ST to HS, Spoleto, May 3, 1958, AAA.

“ horror of the brutality”: ST to HS, Grande Albergo Minerva, Rome, n.d. but most likely late April–early May 1958, AAA.

Although he remained close: His date and address books in YCAL, Box 3, attest to his meetings with those named in the text and many others.

It was a shock to read: Originally titled Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana. ST to HS, “Sunday 11” internal evidence suggests May 1958, AAA. Also ST to AB, June 1, 1958: “The idea of using dialogue to describe a person—not in the dialogue—is brilliant.” ST felt several empathies for Gadda: both were Politecnico graduates, but Gadda had been in engineering; Both considered themselves “intensely Milanese,” and Gadda’s innovative use of language in literature had parallels with ST’s in art.

“undesired role”: ST to AB, June 1, 1958, SSF.

In his influential 1915 essay: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Rise of Cubism (New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1949), pp. 5–16; originally published as Der Weg zum Kubismus (Munich: Delphin, 1920).

Earlier in 1958: HSto ST, n.d. but internal evidence suggests early 1958, YCAL, microfilm letters.

Picasso gave the paper: ST merely mentions that he called on Picasso in ST to AB, June 1, 1958, SSF. In a note to the letter, AB writes: “The result, logically, was not an exceptional drawing but merely a pleasant souvenir of the meeting, which since it was done with a ballpoint pen, ST kept wrapped in dark paper so that it would not fade with the passage of time. To ST, it signified above all that on that day Picasso had considered him his peer.” SSF, in a comment to this note, said that AB is mistaken about the ballpoint pen: that one of the drawings was done in pencil, the other in colored crayons; also that ST did not keep it wrapped but framed the two sheets together. One is currently at YCAL, the other is owned by Stéphane Roman; interviews, January 11 and 12, 2008. See also S: I, cat. 69, p. 192. On p. 246, n. 155, Joel Smith writes that cadavre exquis works make their earliest appearance in the brochure for ST’s 1966 exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery and are also reproduced in WMAA, p. 193. ST played the conventional version of cadavre exquis with Picasso on May 16, 1958. One of the drawings was most recently shown at the Musée Tomi Ungerer, Centre International de l’Ilustration, Strasbourg, France, in the exhibition “Saul Steinberg: L’ecriture visuelle,” November 27, 2009–February 28, 2010.

“an old Jewish man”: Adam Gopnik, from the multiple drafts of “Talks with Steinberg,” 1986–93, YCAL, Boxes 48 and 67.

The work was steadying: The following account is based on letters from Rosa and Moritz Steinberg and Lica and Ilie Roman to ST, from January 1958 through January 1959, Romanian letters, YCAL, Boxes 8 and 14.

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