Chapter twenty-five: changes and New things

“I haven’t written to you”: ST to AB, August 7, 1960, SSF.

On July 9, 1960, he wrote: ST, National Diary, 1960, YCAL, Box 3. “Ala” was probably the architect Ala Damaz, who worked on his 75th Street apartment.

“Catch ’em young”: From “The Girl in the Spotlight,” by Victor Herbert and Richard Bruce.

Those who were present at the start: Among these were HS, Ruth Nivola, Vita Peterson, Dore Ashton, Benjamin Sonnenberg, and many others.

When she told him she was planning: In her “Life in Postcards” she writes that she did hitchhike to Provincetown; in other diary entries she describes how she took a train, and in a letter dated “p.m. Aug. 60,” she says she is writing to him while on the train; YCAL, Box 110. Also calendar listing dates in Provincetown, YCAL, Box 108.

When he listed his “engagements”: ST’s memo to himself on a page titled “Engagements for the week,” YCAL, Box 14, Folder “Correspondence 1959–61.” Also ST, National Diary, July–August, 1960, YCAL, Box 3.

“but I never got to see”: SS, “My Life in Postcards,” YCAL, Box 110.

And in the week following: In the letter dated “p.m. Aug. 60,” written on the train to Provincetown, SS tells ST, “When I find myself hanging on you like today, I want to dislike myself and I couldn’t go home and do something. If I had some work I maybe would have made it.” It is the first of her oblique requests that soon become overt when she asks him to help her find work. Among the friends ST consulted were Serge Chermayef, n.d., YCAL, Box 14, who tried to find work for her at Harvard and who contacted his counterpart at the University of Chicago Press, and Paul Rand, n.d., YCAL Box 14, who spoke to the designer Irving Miller and Allan Thurlbut, the art director at Look.

“classically Nordic”: Descriptions of SS that follow are from interviews with (among many others) Richard Fadem, March 2, 2010; Dore Ashton, February 24, 2010; HS, March 29, 2007; Ruth Nivola, July 24 and September 22, 2007; Claire Nivola, July 2, 2008; Mimi Gross, March 9, 2010; and Benjamin Sonnenberg, telephone conversations, July 2007.

“represented his idea of Eros”: HS, interview, March 29, 2007.

She was born long after: In a diary entry for April 15, 1992, YCAL, Box 111, she writes that she first went to Trier for “my brother’s funeral,” so she must have had two brothers, although no other mention is made of the one who died.

She liked to joke: From interviews with Ruth Nivola, Dore Ashton, Vita Peterson, and many others. HS, interview, April 18, 2007, said that “Sigrid’s attitude about herself was that she was absolutely not to be forgiven for German Nazi behavior; she was filled with guilt over it.” HS added that it was difficult “to know the true degree of Sigrid’s Germanness.”

“terrible years of the war”: From an undated, untitled page of diary writing in YCAL, Box 108.

“evil or bad”: SS, diary, “Tues. 21 91,” which precedes the dated entry for May 22, 1991, YCAL, Box 111. According to SS, when her mother met ST for the first time she used these words to describe her daughter.

“authority and establishment”: SS, diary, September 8, 1971, YCAL, Box 108. When she wrote this, she was describing ST, saying he had become “all I ran away from home from,” and then she went on to compare his behavior to her father’s.

“It didn’t work out”: SS, “My Life in Postcards,” April 15, 1994, YCAL, Box 110. This is a collection of postcards on which she made biographical observations.

She was later vague: SS to Uschi, October 22, 1971, YCAL, Box 108.

She never explained how: Biographical information is from SS’s “Synopsis” of her life in USA from 1958 to 1971, YCAL, Box 108.

she was crashing in a friend’s apartment: SS, a single page of “Important Dates” in her handwriting, YCAL, Box 108. Her date for the first meeting with ST, July 11, differs from his, given above as July 9.

“stupid and innocent enthusiasm”: SS, diary, May 9, 1970, YCAL, Box 112.

Hedda called to ask his advice: ST, National Diary, entries for August 23 and 27, September 2, 8, 14, and 16, 1960, YCAL, Box 3; HS, interviews and conversations, 2007.

While he was dealing with police reports: Lica Roman to ST, August 2, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

The house had to be gutted: Rica Roman’s letter of July 30, 1960, gives the details of many of these expenditures; Romanian letters,” YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

Steinberg wrote checks: Moritz Steinberg to ST, July 19, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

“Mom doesn’t feel very well”: Moritz Steinberg to ST, July 28, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

“You can’t imagine my pain”: Rosa Steinberg to ST, August 6, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

Steinberg used his contacts: Rica Roman to ST, August 20, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1. He learned that he was hired on December 22, 1960, to begin work at Schlumberger just after New Year’s 1961.

“either to remain in Nice”: Rica Roman to ST, August 20, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

Lica had secured a job: She left L’Arche shortly after to work for La revue mensuelle du fonds social juif unifie (La revue du FSJU), to which ST took a subscription, YCAL, Box 13. In her letters, particularly September 17, 1960, Lica described her work on L’Arche as “in the New Yorker ’s style” and asked ST to send a drawing for the magazine to use. There is no record that he complied with her request.

“We loved each other”: Rosa Steinberg to ST, September 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

“like being on a permanent vacation”: Lica Roman to ST, September 17, 1960, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

In almost every letter to Saul: Rosa Steinberg to ST, November 22, 1960, December 28, 1960, and others, Romanian letters, YCAL, Box 14, Folder 1.

“his idea of friendship”: HS, interview, October 24, 2007.

“found it a little difficult”: HS, interview, May 8, 2007. She added: “After twenty or thirty years of separation, every now and again he would ask me if I still had something that he remembered and wanted now, and of course I always gave it to him. Sometimes I asked him for something. There was an occasional exchange of goods, but that’s all.”

There was a fairly large group: HS, interview, October 24, 2007. Among those she edited out were May and Harold Rosenberg, Evelyn Hofer and Humphrey Sutton, Ingeborg Ten Haeff and Paul Weiner.

“I did that with or without”: Ibid. She refers to her two husbands, who supported her throughout her lifetime. Eleanor Munro interviewed HS for her book Originals: American Women Artists (New York: DaCapo, 2000). In an interview with DB, May 31, 2007, Munro said, “There was always something very ascetic about Hedda. How she suffered terribly after he left her! All those exercises she did to purify her mind; how rigorously she painted!” HS’s “one unfinished love affair” was with Theodore “Teddy” Brauner, the younger brother of Victor, who lived with her in the New York house and who accompanied her to Venice during her Fulbright year. She added that she was “fifty-five or fifty-six” when she made the decision to become celibate.

“I was a zombie”: SS, diary, January 9, 1963.

Every now and again a commission: John Hollander, Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). A folder of SS’s book jackets are in YCAL, Box 111, and include Peter Gay’s Freud for Historians and the Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Volume I. Most of her designs are for scholarly books and are fairly conservative, with neat lettering and little illustration. At a time before computers, when hand lettering was a skill publishers sought, SS was noted for her talent in creating or copying beautiful typefaces. Among the other writers whose covers she designed were Theodore Hershberg, Richard Sewell, Theodore Reik, and Joseph Epstein.

“To you my darling”: SS to ST, n.d., YCAL, Box 13, Folder “Correspondence 1960–61.”

“relentless recorder of urban types”: Grace Glueck, YCAL, Box 13.

“even greater inventiveness”: Phillip Day, “The Labyrinth,” Sunday Times, May 20, 1961.

To make sure that Steinberg had calmed down: Cass Canfield to ST, January 17, 1961, YCAL, Box 13.

The book sold around: Cass Canfield to ST, April 1 and 21, 1965, YCAL, Box 15.

Canfield planned to use the phrase: The Wilson and Mumford information is from ST to HS, May 3, 1961; the Huxley from Cass Canfield to ST, January 17, 1961, YCAL, Box 13.

“Let’s face it”: Cass Canfield to ST, April 21, 1964, YCAL, Box 15.

He was in Paris: ST’s reply to “Mr. Kunz” was actually to Professor Paul Grimley Kuntz, a member of the philosophy faculty of Emory University. Prof. Kuntz was active in the university’s studies in law and religion and he was also cognizant of ST’s drawings for Paul Tillich’s My Search for Absolutes. ST’s letter is May 7, 1966, YCAL, Box 15, Folder 1965–66. Eugene Freeman wrote to ST on May 27 to say that Professor Kuntz “was so pleased with your rebuke that … he wants to publish it.”

When she was trying to determine: Meera E. Agarwal, Vassar College Senior Project, “Steinberg’s Treatment of the Theme of the Artist: A Collage of Conversations,” December 8, 1972, YCAL, Box 78.

“suit that looks more”: SS to ST, May 19, 1961.

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