Saul Steinberg: The Americans

The American Way of Life 1958

On eight free-standing tableaux with a total length of over seventy metres, Saul Steinberg created an impressive collage about the American way of life for the American pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels and simply called it "The Americans". The Museum Ludwig in Cologne is now showing the complete ensemble again for the first time - supplemented by further drawings, collages and magazine illustrations.
Saul Steinberg, born in Romania in 1914 and died in New York in 1999, began studying architecture in Milan in 1932 and then tried to emigrate to the USA in 1941 with a passport whose stamp he had forged himself, only to be deported to the Dominican Republic. From there, he sent his drawings to the "New Yorker" in order to finally make it to the USA. "The Americans" is regarded as the high point of Saul Steinberg's artistic work, which made him famous above all as a gifted illustrator for the "New Yorker". In 1976, a labyrinthine cityscape of New York adorned the cover of the magazine of the same name, which made Steinberg famous. The book not only documents "The Americans" extensively in outstanding illustrations, but also impressively shows for the first time the mix of the most diverse media - drawing, photography, wallpaper patterns, wrapping paper and comic fragments. The exhibition and book therefore not only serve as a rediscovery, but for the first time also provide an authentic view of the opportunities to encounter both metropolitan and rural America, as offered by the first World's Fair in post-war Europe.

Exhibition:
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 23/3 - 23/6/2013