Drawings to Be Read / Disegni da leggere

When he was almost twenty years old, Saul Steinberg moved to Milan to study architecture at the Politecnico: his Italian years (1933-1941) laid the foundations of his future vision, acting as the starting point, albeit an early one, of his unique ability to chart unexplored territories and to rely on humor to “conceal” the seriousness of certain topics, which he combined with an extraordinary graphic talent. The Steinberg collection at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan, recently gifted by The Saul Steinberg Foundation, pays homage to Steinberg’s eight Milanese years and casts new light on an artist whose many-leveled output (from magazines to murals to stage sets) makes it difficult to situate him within the established canons of art history. Starting from the works now in the Brera collection, this books develops a narrative journey where the artist speaks for himself, through the texts of the conversations with his friend Aldo Buzzi—some of them published here for the first time. Steinberg’s life and work are seen up close, showing how his own history traversed his work to create a great autobiography.