posted 11-06-2010 01:08 PM            

1. His brother William Steig was a popular long-time cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine
   
2. Henry Steig also drew cartoons for magazines, using the name "Henry Anton"
   
3. In his early years he made a living playing saxophone and clarinet in New York dance bands (and met his wife while performing at a resort)
   
4. He was a non-fiction writer who did music criticism and a Benny Goodman profile for the New Yorker
   
5. He also wrote fiction for magazines like Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, and Collier's
   
6. He wrote a novel called Send Me Down that was published in 1941 by Alfred A. Knopf
   
7. He briefly lived in Hollywood writing screenplays and worked with notables such as songwriter Johnny Mercer
   
8. He and his brother Arthur were partners in Steig Products, a successful company that made artists' paint and ink
   
9. During World War II he worked as a diamond-tool machinist
   
10. In 1955 he opened a store at 590 Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street, which happened to serve as a background for the famous Marilyn Monroe scene in the movie The Seven Year Itch, when her dress blew over her head while she was standing on a subway grating

Steig was born in 1906 in New York City and grew up in the Bronx. His parents had emigrated from Poland. His father was a house painter, his mother a seamstress. Henry studied at CCNY and the National Academy of Design. After stints as a musician, cartoonist, writer, and ink manufacturer, he decided in 1948 to make jewelry. He took a few evening classes but was mostly self-taught, and within a year was selling jewelry from his West 9th Street apartment.

posted 11-06-2010 06:44 PM            

In other news, I wonder if Steig signed all of his pieces; I gave my wife a necklace a few years ago that looks a lot like some of Steig's pieces. Then again, some of the pieces illustrated look like the work of Calder and other studio modernist jewelers.

posted 11-09-2010 01:29 PM            

Here is a necklace I bought for my wife. It is completely unmarked, but seems very similar to some of the pieces illustrated above. Maybe it is the work of Jan Deen, or some imitator of Steig? Or Steig himself?