Chapter forty: the passion of his life

“Saul truly loved her”: AB, interview, June 19, 2007.

Perhaps Sigrid was not fated: AB to ST, April 29, 1981, YCAL, Box 60.

These phases of flamboyant behavior: On a file card dated “May 3” in YCAL, Box 110, she wrote: “My recent hypo/maniac episode cost me,” followed by a list of purchases that totaled $14,300. Bills to ST charged by “Mrs. Steinberg” and signed by SS appear occasionally throughout YCAL, Boxes 108–115, which contain SS’s papers.

Ruth and Tino Nivola invited her: The following account is from Dore Ashton, interviews, January 20, 2009, and February 24, 2010; Ruth Nivola, interviews, July 24 and September 22, 2007.

“not all that bad”: SS collected articles about the Holocaust, particularly how the Nazis tortured Jews and how women were required to add “Sarah” to their given names and men “Israel.” She made a list of all the extermination camps and where they were located, and she collected articles about neo-Nazis and skinheads. She was also interested in the postwar rise of fascism in various countries, particularly Spain. All these articles are in YCAL, Box 110.

“be with a Nazi’s daughter”: Interviews with HS, Ruth Nivola, Dore Ashton, Vita Peterson, Ellen Adler, and others.

“he was very sweet to her”: Cornelia Foss, March 20, 2010. Ms. Foss and her late husband, the composer Lukas Foss, were often part of “the three couples”—the Fosses, ST and SS, and Muriel Murphy and William Gaddis—mainly in East Hampton.

Hedda Sterne said it was more than that: HS, interviews and telephone conversations, 2007 and 2008.

“Not bad, but fierce”: ST to AB, May 23, 1983, SSF.

“The question is”: Numbers in ST’s handwriting, comment in SS’s, n.d., YCAL, Box 110. Unless noted otherwise, information that follows is from SS’s diary writings in YCAL Boxes 110, 111, 112, and 113.

“terrible loneliness”: This phrase was used by Claire Nivola and Gus Kiley in interviews, July 2, 2008; AB, interview, June 19, 2007; HS, various interviews throughout 2007, and many others.

“She had very few friends”: Mimi Gross, interview, March 9, 2010.

“two people living together”: These quotations are comments from interviews with (among others) Ellen Adler, Dore Ashton, Aldo Buzzi, Cornelia Foss, IF, Mimi Gross, Ruth Nivola, Dana Roman, Hedda Sterne, and Karen van Lengen.

Even though she enjoyed: She made a list of all the grudges she had against him, YCAL, Box 111: “It has become like living with Dana—you, being the spoiled brat—offended for my not pampering you more, looking for understanding everywhere else (consolation from Hedda, etc.) and me stuck and lonely, without friends, doing the dirty work.”

“I’d rather be like Hedda”: SS, from her 47-page typed diary for 1981–82, YCAL, Box 111.

She felt she was worthy: Richard Fadem, interview, March 2, 2010.

What he did do was contact: David J. Shewitz of Shewitz and Rosenhouse, CPAs, to SS, May 9, 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

He also agreed to let his lawyers make: Joseph S. Iseman and John C. Taylor III, from the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison, memorandum to ST, February 9, 1982. In this change, HS inherited one-third, his niece and nephew shared a second third, and SS was to receive the third portion. The change suggested (and accepted by ST) was that HS would receive the principal of the trust until her death, at which time it would be payable to Dana and Stéphane Roman, with the “only disadvantage” that they would not inherit until HS’s death. On August 4, 2010, HS celebrated her hundredth birthday; she died on April 8, 2011.

“not even the next ten days”: SS, diary, 1981–82, YCAL, Box 111. I have also relied on SS’s correspondence with the Belgian photographer Pierre Cordier, whom ST befriended at the 1958 World’s Fair. Cordier and SS became close; copies of his extensive correspondence and photographs of SS are at SSF.

She recalled how she and her father: SS to Pierre Cordier, March 24, 1982, SSF.

Saul was worried about how the depth: ST to AB, September 27, 1982, SSF.

“when she got horribly depressed”: Cornelia Foss, interview, March 20, 2010.

“nobody can live like this”: The following information is from a typescript dated “Sunday, Feb. 9,” to which SS later added “Spaeth 1967,” YCAL, box unidentified, copy in SSF. The text is a conversation/exchange between SS and ST.

Her “valium summer” began: SS, diary, writings beginning March 29 and ending sometime in mid- to late September 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

“avoid the errors of the past”: ST to AB, July 20, 1983, SSF.

“without drama”: ST to AB, July 12, 1983, SSF.

He had been prompted to end: ST, diary, May 30, n.d. but internal evidence suggests he is writing in the early 1990s and reflecting back to the early 1980s, YCAL, Box 75.

He preferred distance on his own terms: The following account is from SS, diary “Summer ’83,” August 6–10, YCAL, Box 111.

Later he made a movie of her: There are many nude photos of SS in the YCAL boxes, most of them in Box 23. Most were taken by ST, but others were taken by Evelyn Hofer, and there are unidentified photographs in which SS sits on ST’s lap, nude, while he is fully clothed. Both stare intently and dispassionately at the camera.

“nice weekend” together: ST to AB, August 10, 1983, SSF.

On her next visit, he relented: The following account is from SS, diary “Summer ’83,” August 9, YCAL Box 111.

He was confident that if things remained amicable: ST to AB, references in letters of July 12 and 20, 1983; further clarification from AB, interview, June 19, 2007.

When he returned, the holiday season: IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

“If I should die,” she began: SS to ST, December 2, 1983, YCAL, Box 111.

“empty, boring”: SS to Pierre Cordier, postcard, October 24, 1984, SSF.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: “STEINBERGIAN”

“A drawing from life reveals”: R & S, p. 72.

“the racket, the hysteria”: ST to AB, January 16, 1984, SSF.

“Bulletin: I stopped drinking”: ST to AB, dated by him as July 12, 1983, but internal evidence suggests September, SSF.

He had checked himself into a Zen temple: ST to AB, dated by him as July 20, 1983, but internal evidence suggests September, SSF.

To acquire knowledge through practice: YCAL, Box 69, contains addresses for the Zen Dharmacraft, Massachusetts; Samadhi, Vermont, Zen Center, New York; Zen Stitchery in Idyllwild, California. A letter from Paul Mocsanyi, October 28 (no year), tells him the best book for yoga is Yoga and Health by Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Maich. ST bought a copy.

Usually pretending to be encapsulated: ST to AB, April 2, 1985, SSF.

“I am an amazing sight”: ST to IF, August 18, 1983; ST to AB, July 20, 1983, SSF.

He found such euphoria: ST, “The Bicycle as a Metaphor of America,” 2 pp. of handwritten notes, YCAL, Box 115. ST drew a bicycle for the cover of TNY, July 8, 1985, and later used it for the cover of his 1992 book, The Discovery of America.

“inside with oneself”: ST, diary, n.d., but ca. 1993, YCAL, Box 48.

“elective austerities”: S:I, p. 73.

“only the pleasure of having won”: ST to IF, February 6, 1983; IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

“film exposed sixty years ago”: YCAL, Sketchbook 3323; see also S:I, p. 241, n. 154.

“a person of impulse”: IF, interview, October 12, 2007.

He was one of the few trusted friends: ST, diary, YCAL, Box 75.

“windowless studio”: ST to AB, May 31, 1982; ST, diary, Sunday May 26, n.d. but probably 1983, YCAL, Box 75. ST continued to see Dine, either in Vermont or New York, and at the end of his life was distressed that Dine liked the reproductions done by Graphic de France, to which he strongly objected.

“perhaps a bit too garishly”: ST to AB, May 9, 1982, SSF.

Both books contained texts: Roland Barthes, All Except You, with drawings by Saul Steinberg; Repères, Editions d’Art, Galerie Maeght, s.a. 1983; Dal Vero.

Steinberg and Barthes had known and respected: Steinberg later used variants of some of the drawings in The Discovery of America and Reflections and Shadows, but the book All Except You is relatively unknown in his canon. An unofficial English translation of Barthes’s text was made by William R. Olmstead, professor of humanities at Valparaiso University, who presented a copy to SSF in 2003. All references are from that work, with my gratitude to Professor Olmstead for permission to quote from it. Richard Howard, who is the official Barthes translator for Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, said in a telephone conversation, November 3, 2010, that he had no factual information about why Barthes’s essay was never translated or published in any form after the original appearance, but that he had “long believed both parties [Barthes and ST] had various dissatisfactions with it” and that “both nixed it.” He thinks that it is “a charming essay, worthy of Saul,” and he knew from personal experience that “Barthes was always interested in Steinberg’s work.”

“a collection of drawings that were unique”: John Hollander, interview, October 2, 2007.

His studio assistants remember: Anton van Dalen and Gordon Pulis were among the many observers of ST’s ruthlessless in evaluating his own work. ST told Claire Nivola how angry he was when he was at the Smithsonian and his house servant told him how neighbors went through the trash can in search of his discards. He said the same thing to HS, and many of his friends in New York knew how careful he was when putting out the trash on 75th Street.

“certain parts”: He wrote about this in R & S, pp. 72ff.

It was in Springs that: John Hollander, Blue Wine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). Comments here are taken from p. 71. There is another poem inspired by an ST drawing, “Ave Aut Vale” (untitled, p. 34, collection of the artist), which shows a man, woman, and young girl standing in a doorway. Hollander asked ST “whether this was a scene of arrival or departure; he replied that he didn’t know anything about the people in the drawing save that they were all dead”; John Hollander to DB, October 31, 2007.

He had written about Steinberg: John Hollander’s publications are at www.ct.gov/cct/cwp/view.asp?a=2162&q=329210.

Steinberg told Hollander that throughout: John Hollander, interview, October 2, 2007.

The only other person besides Aldo: He also submitted one of his generic buxom women with large thighs and feet that dissolve into stiletto-pointed boots. To make sure Hollander did not use it, ST send a photocopy as well as the declaration “This picture is OUT”; ST to John Hollander, August 24, 1983, collection of John Hollander.

Eventually they settled on sixteen: From an announcement promoting the publication: “Bound into each copy of the edition of 140 will be an original hard ground etching by Steinberg created exclusively for the publication.” Copy in YCAL, Box 99.

“brace ourselves for more surprises”: ST to AB, July 12, 1883. ST was miffed that the book made money for the publisher and not for him, but that was not something he dwelled on; rather, he concentrated on how well the book was received.

His name had long been used: Rodica Ionesco to ST, July 16, 1982, YCAL, Box 99.

In New York, he graciously accepted: YCAL, Box 64.

He took Bellow’s request: YCAL, Boxes 33, 64, 95, 99, and 110.

Steinberg gave them all gifts of drawings: There is no documentation of the painting’s title or any that shows ST ever accepted payment. Lee Eastman’s letter is in YCAL, Box 64. A thank-you letter from Linda and Paul McCartney, n.d., from their home in East Sussex, England, is in Box 99. There is also no documentation pertaining to a second album cover.

Michael Kennedy, Robert’s son: Michael Kennedy to ST, YCAL, Box 99.

After he and Sigrid resolved the details: SS, diary, March 10–17, 1984, YCAL, Box 111.

“low-rent restaurants”: ST to AB, March 27, 1984, SSF.

“magic—return to forty years ago”: ST to AB, June 26, 1984, SSF; undated letters from AB to ST in YCAL, Box 99, and from Ada to ST throughout the YCAL boxes, where internal evidence provides the information given here. Records of ST’s financial bequests also appear in YCAL, Boxes 6, 7, 8, and 99, where statements from the Banco Lariano, Erba, credit ST with sending money to the account of Giovanni Ongari and Ada Cassola. Apparently Ada had resumed using her maiden name.

She was always in pain: SS, diary entries and medical histories, YCAL, Boxes 99, 110, and 111. The tumor was a filium terminale ependymoma, slow-growing and common in young women. The laminectomy was performed sometime later. In 1990, when she had severe pain, she had another MRI, which resulted in a second surgery to correct inflammation of the arachnoid.

“quite lovely”: ST to AB, June 25, 1984.

He certainly tried to be happy: ST to AB, July 28, 1984, SSF.

In a “gastronomical update”: ST to AB, August 7, 1984, SSF.

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