1962

June 10, awarded an honorary doctorate from Lawrence College, Appleton, Wisconsin—the first of several honorary degrees received over the next 30 years. “Your reality,” the citation reads, “is the crooked mirror where we find ourselves distorted into truth.”

September, in Italy. October 1, arrives in Tel Aviv for a week’s sojourn in Israel; his first trip there. “I discovered the beauty of the place, the poetic, romantic part, etc. of the ancient, medieval, Turkish, Arabic, Romanian places, the sea, the odors and perfumes….I also found people I could talk to immediately in the most subtle way.”

November 20 – December 16, “Saul Steinberg and Paul Klee: An Exhibition of Drawings,” The Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara. ST’s art has often been related to that of Klee and Klee has been cited as an influence on him. A few years after this exhibition, ST tells an interviewer: “Klee? That’s what the experts say. But Klee and I were subjected to the same influences. I am much the same sort of artist; we are of the same family. But there is no direct influence. I drew my way before I ever saw Klee.”

Publication of The Catalogue, an anthology of drawings from ST’s four previous compilations.