Sag Harbor

Saul Steinberg, Sag Harbor, 1969, watercolor and rubber stamp and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.99
Copied Saul Steinberg, Sag Harbor, 1969, watercolor and rubber stamp and ink on paper, sheet: 30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.99

Artwork Details

Title
Sag Harbor
Artist
Date
1969
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet: 30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
Mediums
Mediums Description
watercolor and rubber stamp and ink on paper
Classifications
Subjects
  • Landscape — New York — Sag Harbor
  • Figure(s) in exterior
Object Number
1986.6.99
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1986.6.99

Artwork Description

Although Saul Steinberg is best known as the New Yorker cartoonist whose fanciful people and animals captured the masquerades of modern life, he was also concerned with the impact of development of the land. Sag Harbor, named for a town on Long Island, offers two conflicting views. Five small images (Steinberg called them “Postcards”) of an empty plain contrast with a larger view of a built environment that bears no traces of nature. Between them is a handwritten script that presumably clarifies the message. But the ever-witty Steinberg confounds the explanation. The script as well as the “signature” and official-looking stamp are indecipherable.


Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014