Description
Henry Steig (1906-1973) sterling pins (2). Selling both one of a kind pins, both<br>signed, one stamped, one by hand. Part of a significant collection of Henry<br>Steig Jewelry purchased directly from him in the 50's-60's that I'm lucky enough<br>to be able to offer. Largest 3" x 1 1/8", other 2" x 1.25"...Both seem to<br>possibly represent human forms. 38.6 grams total.<br><br>Jules Brenner and Henry Steig were among group of prominent of New York<br>mid-century studio jewelers who hand-crafted pieces of wearable art that<br>celebrated the avant-garde, rejected traditional jewelry forms, and appealed to<br>an intellectual and liberal middle class. Jules Brenner was born in the Bronx,<br>grew up in Washington Heights, and studied acting with Stella Adler and painting<br>and sculpture in Greenwich Village. Henry Steig (also known as Henry Anton)<br>studied at City College and the National Academy of Design, and began his career<br>as a New York City jazz musician, writer, novelist, cartoonist, and painter.<br>During the 1950s, both Brenner and Steig operated shops and studios in Manhattan<br>and in Provincetown, Massachusetts—then a prominent artists’ enclave—where they<br>sold hand-wrought silver and gold designs which often emphasized biomorphic,<br>surrealist, cubist, and geometric forms.<br><br>Everyone knows the famous picture from the film The Seven Year Itch, of Marilyn<br>Monroe standing on a New York sidewalk, her skirt blown up by on updraft from<br>the subway grate below. However, not everyone knows that at that moment she was<br>standing in front of Henry Steig's jewelry shop at 590 Lexington Avenue.<br>Henry Steig was a man of many talents. Before he became a jeweler, he was a jazz<br>musician, painter, sculptor, commercial artist, cartoonist, photographer, short<br>story writer and novelist.<br><br>"Henry was a Renaissance man," says New Yorker cartoonist Mischa Richter, who<br>was Steig's good friend and Provincetown neighbor.<br><br>Henry Anion Steig was born on February 19, 1906, in New York City. His parents,<br>Joseph and Laura, had come to America at the turn of the century, from Lvov<br>(called Lemberg in German), which was then in the Polish port of the<br>Austro-Hungarian Empire. Joseph was a housepainter and Laura, a seamstress.<br><br>They had four sons, Irwin, Henry, William and Arthur, all of them versatile,<br>talented and artistic. William Steig is the well-known New Yorker cartoonist and<br>author-illustrator of children's books. lrwin was a writer of short stories for<br>the New Yorker. Arthur was a painter and poet whose poems were published in the<br>New Republic and Poetry magazines.<br><br>William Steig recalls, "My father and mother both began pointing and become<br>exhibiting artists after their sons grew up." In the May 14, 1945, issue of<br>Newsweek magazine, an article was published about an exhibition, "possibly the<br>first one family show on Art Row (57th Street)" at the New Art Circle Gallery.<br>It was called "The Eight Performing Steigs, Artists All." Included were<br>paintings By Joseph and Laura Steig; drawings and sculpture by William and<br>paintings by his wife, Liza; paintings by Arthur and his wife, Aurora; and<br>photographs by Henry and paintings by his wife, Mimi. The only brother not<br>included was Irwin, "the only non-conformist Steig," who was working at that<br>time as advertising manager of a Connecticut soap manufacturer.<br><br>In the article "the brothers attribute the family's abundance of good artists to<br>the fact that we all like each other's work…get excited about it. Whenever<br>anyone starts they get lots of encouragement. Joseph Steig adds, 'Painting is a<br>contagious thing. If you lived in our environment, you would probably point.'"<br><br>Henry Steig grew up in this extraordinary environment. The family lived in the<br>Bronx. After graduating from high school, Henry Steig went to City College<br>(CCNY). After three years he left to study painting and sculpture at the<br>National Academy of Design. He was also an accomplished musician, playing<br>saxophone, violin and classical guitar, and while he was in college, he began<br>working as a jazz musician. From about 1922, when only sixteen years old, until<br>1932 he played reed instruments with local dance bands.<br><br>After four years at the National Academy, Steig worked as a commercial artist<br>and cartoonist. He signed his cartoons "Henry Anton" because his brother William<br>was working as a cartoonist at the same time, for many of the same magazines.<br>From about 1932 to 1936, Henry Anton cartoons appeared in Life, Judge, New<br>Yorker and other magazines.<br><br>Steig began a writing career in 1935 that lasted until about 1947. He became<br>very successful and well known as a short story writer, with stories appearing<br>regularly in Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker, Esquire, Colliers and others.<br>They were often humorous tales about jazz and the jazz musicians who populated<br>the world of music in the roaring twenties. Other stories were about his Bronx<br>childhood. He also wrote nonfiction magazine pieces, including a New Yorker<br>profile of Benny Goodmon and jazz criticism. Several of his nonfiction articles<br>were illustrated by William Steig.<br><br>In 1941 , Alfred A. Knopf published Henry Steig's novel, Send Me Down. The<br>story, told with absolute realism, is about two brothers who become jazz<br>musicians in the twenties. On the book jacket, Steig wrote, "Much of the<br>material for Send Me Down was gathered during my years as a jazz musician<br>playing with local jazz bands and with itinerant groups in vaudeville and on<br>dance hall tour engagements. Although I was only second-rate as a musician, I<br>know my subject from the inside, and I believe I was the first to write stories<br>about jazz musicians, based on actual personal experience." His son, Michael,<br>recalls that there was some interest in making a movie of the book. "My father<br>told me that John Garfield wanted to play the lead character."<br><br>Steig did go to Hollywood in 1941, under contract to write screenplays. He was<br>going to work with Johnny Mercer, the songwriter. After the ing of Pearl Harbor<br>on December 7, he returned to New York. "He undoubtedly would have returned<br>anyway," says Michael Steig. "He was not happy with the contract his agent had<br>negotiated for him." Mischa Richter odds, "Henry was very unimpressed with<br>Hollywood."
