"Saul Steinberg: Illuminations".(Exhibition notes)

"Saul Steinberg: Illuminations" Morgan Library & Museum, New York. November 30, 2006-March 4, 2007

When we enter the world of Saul Steinberg's drawings, we find ourselves enclosed in a paradise of delightful absurdities. What we normally think of as the reality of daily life has everywhere been transformed into an animated landscape of wit and paradox. Everything we see in these drawings--nearly 100, from every phase of Steinberg's career, are on view in this fetching exhibition--is either too big or too small, and the force of gravity has been suspended in favor of objects and figures that enjoy the liberties that Steinberg has created for their benefit. Even words are endowed with the power to remain aloft, and a Christmas tree may serve as a suitable costume for a Santa Claus.

Despite the inveterate zaniness of Steinberg's art, however, it would be a mistake to regard these delightful absurdities as some variety of Surrealism. Steinberg's vision is something quite different: the vision of a comic realist. He does not invent his subjects; he discovers them in the realities that others have overlooked. Steinberg, who grew up in Bucharest, emigrated to the United States in 1942 when he was 32, and his art brings to these realities the innocence and ...