Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

This drawing brings together many of Steinberg’s graphic hallmarks, including graceful, undulating Art Deco geometric forms and Cubist-inspired figures displayed in profile (complete with distinctively modernist “Picasso noses”) to form a playful, stylized interpretation of a scene of office life. Despite the counter-illusionistic tendencies of some shape interactions, such as the boss behind the desk seeming to slip “under” the line marking the far edge of the floor, the conversation across the blocky wood desk between the standing woman, her fellow workers, and the suited, smoking boss turns this space into a psychological situation rather than merely a formal exercise.