Saul Steinberg
Nine Wyoming Postcards, 1968
Ink, watercolor, ink stamps and collage on paper
14 5/8 x 23 inches
Signed and dated recto; inscribed verso.
Signed and dated recto; inscribed verso.
A wonderful example of Saul Steinberg's lush and playful postcard-style landscapes. From the Saul Steinberg Foundation website: 'Exquisitely brushed or sponged in oil or thin watercolor wash, they are simple...
A wonderful example of Saul Steinberg's lush and playful postcard-style landscapes.
From the Saul Steinberg Foundation website:
"Exquisitely brushed or sponged in oil or thin watercolor wash, they are simple compositions, with cloud-sky formations above, punctuated by rubber stamp sun-seals, and a horizontal expanse of flat land and/or water below; sometimes a bit of faux calligraphy feigns elucidation. They are peopled with painted or (usually) rubber stamp figures, the kind of embellishments called staffage in earlier landscape painting. 'If I use a rubber stamp…I do it to show that this paint is not real paint, it’s a symbol of the thing painted.' Steinberg didn’t depict nature, but nature as translated by art, from high to low, the low end here represented by the clichéd vistas of tourist postcards."
From the Saul Steinberg Foundation website:
"Exquisitely brushed or sponged in oil or thin watercolor wash, they are simple compositions, with cloud-sky formations above, punctuated by rubber stamp sun-seals, and a horizontal expanse of flat land and/or water below; sometimes a bit of faux calligraphy feigns elucidation. They are peopled with painted or (usually) rubber stamp figures, the kind of embellishments called staffage in earlier landscape painting. 'If I use a rubber stamp…I do it to show that this paint is not real paint, it’s a symbol of the thing painted.' Steinberg didn’t depict nature, but nature as translated by art, from high to low, the low end here represented by the clichéd vistas of tourist postcards."