Saul Steinberg
Still Life with Cat1966
pen and ink, ink wash, colored pencil, pencil, and collage
23 3/8 x 29 3/8 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist
Steinberg elevated comic illustration to a fine art as a cartoonist whose drawings regularly appeared in the New Yorker magazine. The cat's dead-pan human profile perhaps refers to the artist himself. The writing included in the drawing is legible only as lines drawn to mimic writing, offering no explanation of the enigmatic imagery.
