1948

March-April, visits to Cincinnati to install mural at the Terrace Plaza Hotel.

Postcard, c. 1950, of the Skyline Room with Steinberg’s mural, Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati.

One part of the mural of Cincinnati for the Terrace Plaza Hotel, as installed in the Cincinnati Art Museum, 2007.

Commissioned by industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss to provide murals for the bars in the “Four Aces,” four newly built ships of the American Export Lines. The design program places contemporary art by several artists throughout the ships.

April, sails to Paris to meet Hedda; they travel in France. April 22, receives an urgent telegram from Gian Carlo Menotti in London, asking ST to design the backdrop for the London production of The Telephone, opening in seven days. ST accepts.

Steinberg and Sterne in Paris, 1948. The Saul Steinberg Foundation.

May, sends roughs of the “Four Aces” drawings to Dreyfuss from Paris. In the end, there is no time to complete four different drawings, so the same drawing, photographically enlarged, is used on each of the ships.

Bar with Steinberg’s mural in one of the “Four Aces” ships of the American Export Lines, 1948.

Detail of the American Export Lines mural, 1948.

June, with Hedda in Milan. July-August, ST and Hedda travel in Switzerland and Italy; visit Aldo Buzzi in Mantua, where he is constructing the set for Alberto Lattuada’s film Il Mulino del Po. After two weeks in Biarritz, ST and Hedda return to Paris.

Aldo Buzzi in Mantua, 1948. Photo by Steinberg. Buzzi was constructing the set for Alberto Lattuada’s film Il Mulino del Po. Saul Steinberg Papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. — Aldo Buzzi in Mantua, 1948. Photo by Steinberg. Buzzi was constructing the set for Alberto Lattuada’s film *Il Mulino del Po*. Saul Steinberg Papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Aldo Buzzi in Mantua, 1948. Photo by Steinberg. Collection of Marina Marchesi and Franco Salghetti-Drioli.

October 6, arrives back in New York.

Steinberg and Sterne in their apartment on East 50th St., New York, c. 1948-50. The Hedda Sterne Foundation.

Late December, his parents, having gotten visas to leave Bucharest, arrive in Paris; they stay with Hedda’s brother, the conductor Edward Lindenberg. ST’s sister, Lica, her husband, Rica Roman, and their baby son cannot get permission to leave. ST helps support his parents and his sister’s family.