Textile, Trains

Trains, by Saul Steinberg, depicts vistas of railway stations with an emphasis on metal and architectural structures. Engines, coaches, and passengers are also represented. The design is created by screen printing a line drawing in black accented with touches of blue, green, orange, and red on a white silk, plain weave ground. This textile was manufactured Piazza Prints, an independent screen printer in New York (established 1946) that produced many of Steinberg’s designs as wallcoverings, textiles, and scarves.
Romanian-born Steinberg studied architecture in Milan beginning in 1933, but soon after began publishing cartoons. By the time he graduated in 1940, his drawings were appearing in Life and Harper’s Bazaar. In 1941, anti-Jewish laws in fascist Italy forced Steinberg to immigrate to the United States. He began publishing regularly in The New Yorker, a relationship that lasted almost 60 years and produced 90 covers and over 1,000 drawings and cartoons. Steinberg was an Artist in Residence at the Smithsonian in 1967 and is well-represented in the Smithsonian collections.
The museum has examples of Steinberg’s works on paper, wallcoverings, and textiles. We have Trains as a glazed cotton textile and as a silk scarf; this proposed acquisition would provide a third representation of the subject.

Textile, Trains; Printed by Piazza Prints Inc. (United States); silk; Warp x Weft: 716.3 x 92.1 cm (23 ft. 6 in. x 36 1/4 in.); Gift of Robert A. and Lynne C. Adams; 2007-28-3