"THE NEW WORLD" par Saul STEINBERG. Editions Harper & Row, New York. 1965. Edition Originale. Petit in-4, couverture toilée jaune sous jaquette illustrée (état d'usage). Pages de garde illustrées. Non paginé (158p). Texte en anglais, illustré de très nombreuses reproductions de dessins noir & blanc de Saul Steinberg.

 

"Steinberg's line is the line of a master penman and artist; it is also a "line" – that is, a kind of organized talk. Because of his superb penmanship and the complex intellectual nature of his assertions, Steinberg might be considered as a kind of writer, though there is only one of his kind. "There is perhaps no artist alive," testifies E.H. Gombrich in 'Art and Illusion', "who knows more about the philosophy of representation." Logician of stereotypes and repetitive social situations, Steinberg brings to life dramas of abstract entities masquerading as people, animals, landscapes. Irresistible as a juggling act, Steinberg never satisfied himself with the merely entertaining – the reason why his vein has shown no sign of running out. His translations of words into pictures and pictures into writing continuously scoop meaning out of platitudinous situations and set phrases. This is a labor of philosophy. Specifically, Steinberg is a philosopher of identity, a subject he dreams about all day and reasons about in his dreams. His illusionist double language is, in the most complete sense, an autobiographical record, notations of a prolonged research into the artist's self within surroundings at times menacing and always full of strangeness." Extrait de "The Anxious Object" par Harold Rosenberg.

 

Ref LIL0129