Sam Steinberg never got his due.
Sam Steinberg from fredseibert on Vimeo.
In 1973, outsider artist Sam Steinberg, a fixture on the Columbia University campus in New York City who made thousands of paintings in about 15 years, painted the cover of Oblivion's third release, Friends by alto saxophonist, former Columbia student Marc Cohen (Copland). (Read more about the cover here.)
Sam never got his due from the art establishment who somehow missed his "outsider" work entirely. Was it because he exclusively sold on Columbia's campus? Or that he worked in the mundanity of the common Magic Marker? Or maybe that he worked in New York City, the media capital of the world? Shouldn't 'outsider art' be outside of the world center of "real art?" (Thank you DD.) One way or the other this man who created more than 3000 works (that's conservative; it could be more than 7000 or 10,000, easily!) in only 15 years flew completely under the radar. A shame.
In 1983, my Columbia radio buddy Alan Goodman was my creative partner at MTV. As our last hurrah before starting the world's first media branding company, we asked one of our key animation collaborators, Candy Kugel from Buzzco Associates (founded by Buzz Potamkin), to adapt some of Sam's iconic characters into a couple of 10-second network identifications.
Alan and I loved them, but alas, our successors at MTV did not. The animations never aired. Sigh.
Sam 2014 from Ed Gray on Vimeo.
In 2014, documentarian Ed Gray, a former Columbia student himself, completed a short film on Sam he had shot in 1971.
Sam passed in 1982, but here you can get a load of one of the great late 20th century characters who we all adored for his art, of course, and his personality.
