Steinberg is best known for his illustrations and graphic work he made for ‘The New Yorker’. Steinberg also had a great sense of fun, and a tendancy to view the whole world as his canvas: he drew on faces and photographs, painted cats on walls and floors using stools for their bodies.  

And, he made masks. In 1958, when photographer Inge Morath arrived at his apartment to make a portrait, he came to the door wearing a mask he had fashioned from nothing more than a brown paper bag and a marker. Over the next several years, they collaborated on the Masquerade series of portraits, inviting friends and colleagues to pose for Morath wearing Steinberg’s playful, deceptively simple disguises.

left photograph is made by Bill Silano and published in Harper’s Bazaar April, 1968.  the Mask photographs are made by Inge Morath.