New Yorker Cover, May 19, 1962
watercolor, ink, crayon and graphite on paper
signed Steinberg to the lower right
Strathmore blindstamp

22" ht. x 14" wd. (sight)
30.5" ht. x 21.5" wd. (framed)

LITERATURE

The New Yorker 19 May 1962 (illustrated in color on the cover)
J. Smith, Steinberg at The New Yorker, New York, 2005, pp. 65

DESCRIPTION

A fine example of one of Saul Steinberg's earlier New Yorker Cover Illustrations, published on May 19, 1962. This is the original artwork by the artist. Executed in watercolor, ink, crayon and graphite on paper, with Strathmore Artists blindstamp to lower right of sheet. Rarely do Steinberg's New Yorker cover art originals surface. Two other additional cover art examples with slight variations for the May 19th issue (B & C examples) can be found in the 1978 book Saul Steinberg Knopf/Whitney by Rosenberg on page 124. The work depicts the Ecole de New York eagle standing above the Ecole de Paris guitar. Additional arts and humanities categories are featured throughout the illustration, with figures standing atop columns all stacked atop a monument. An additional signature exists to the upper right hand portion of the illustration.

As noted on page 88 of Steinberg at The New Yorker by J. Smith: "Steinberg was quick to see that in postwar America ---where the eagle of the New York School was sinking its talons into the guitar of the Ecole de Paris --- art had less to do with ideas or traditions than with power, intimidation and prestige. Everything has a message, he noted, even the smell of museums. In Europe, the museums smell of town halls and grad schools, in America they smell like banks."

Caza Sikes is excited to present The Friedlander Collection, amassed by multiple generations of a keen and enthusiastic collecting family.

The collection was assembled in two phases, spanning the better half of a century: first by Jane and Alfred Friedlander, with purchase history for individual works dating to the early 20th Century, and continued by Susan and William Friedlander, with works collected as recently as the 2000s.

Notably, Jane and Alfred Friedlander collected important works from a group of respected and celebrated dealers in the 1950s and 60s. These include Theodore Schempp (1904-1988), a graduate of Oberlin College, personal friend of Georges Braque, and expatriate dealer who navigated many works to Midwestern collectors during the middle of the 20th century. Original receipts of purchase on Schempp letterhead, as well as other correspondence, remain with the Collection related to included original works by Paul Klee and Georges Braque. Other important dealers are the famed Knoedler and Co. in New York, and Gimpel Fils Ltd., a seminal European gallery which dealt in top modernists of the 20th century.

Susan and William Friedlander continued the trend of collecting modernist work, primarily via noted Cincinnati modern dealer Carl Solway. Led by a Tom Wesselman original still life as a highlight and a Saul Steinberg original mixed media work featured on the May 19, 1962 cover of The New Yorker, there are many works on paper by top 20th century artists assembled by the Friedlanders, including Magritte, Albers, Giacometti, among others. Additional works by well-known artists such as Pablo Picasso and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva round out the sale.

Many of the works in the Collection were heavily exhibited at institutions. This provenance is well documented, and in most instances exhibiting a clear and unbroken lineage to current day. In some extraordinary cases, such as the Braque, works were purchased directly from the artist.

Slight matburn or toning to the paper corresponding with mat.