Downtown Building
Saul Steinberg
1952
- Medium
- Collage of cut-and-pasted commercially printed papers, and pen and black ink, over graphite with erasing, ruled in graphite, on ivory wove paper
- Dimensions
- 37 × 58.5 cm (14 5/8 × 23 1/16 in.)
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
drawings (visual works)architectureprints and drawingpaper (fiber product)
About
Collage—combining disparate elements to make a whole—is arguably the most important creative technique introduced by modern artists. It is utilized across many artistic media, from drawing to filmmaking, and it was a constant in Steinberg’s toolbox. Here he pokes serious fun at superfluous architectural details, composing his skyscraper of cut-and-pasted printed illustrations, substituting pictures of a pipe organ and decorative interior niches for the building’s registers.
