Smithsonian Stationery
One minor but characteristic addition to Steinberg’s pictorial repertory came in 1967, when he was appointed artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, a place he called a “philosophical institution.” It was hoped that he would “find many subjects in Washington and especially the Smithsonian to inspire creativity.”53 What Steinberg found was surely not what the institution had in mind: “The Smithsonian’s stationery was very beautiful, with perfect steel engravings on various qualities of paper, each one more deluxe than the next. I did many drawings on these sheets of paper, using the letterhead in various ways.”54 The “various ways” recontextualized the old engraving of the Smithsonian buildings. Steinberg’s transformative imagination shifted the plane of perception, turning that letterhead into, among many other things, a still-life element, thought balloon, and bottle label.55