Cafe du Progrès

This relatively early drawing by Steinberg dates from a period when the artist put much effort into creating visions of Europe to satisfy the wanderlust of Americans who were still home-bound after the end of World War II. Like many of Steinberg's works in this mode, the drawing traffics in stereotypes. Both the cafe (no doubt smelling of Gauloises) and the aproned waiter look forward to the cartoon Paris of American movies of the 1950s; and, indeed, Steinberg likely had a great deal of influence on those movie stereotypes. Yet the drawing is not saccharine. There is a dirty intensity to the line, and the work has a unexpectedly challenging air — not surprising given that Paris had only just emerged from German occupation at the time that Steinberg made the work.