Christoph Niemann:

Saul Steinberg:

Comparison:

What are the similarities/differences in the use of objects in their work?

Both of these artist’s use a thick black pen in their work. They also focus on creating an illusion. Christoph Niemann creates images using found objects and draws around the objects to create the illusion of the object being part of the image, they all fit in wonderfully. On the other hand Saul Steinberg creates these masks using brown paper bags to make the illusion of faces.

Are these fun or serious pictures?

I would say that I find both of these artist’s work above very comical. Christoph Niemann’s art is more obviously comical but isn’t a laugh out loud sort of comical more of a “Wow, that’s really cool how he’s done that!” on the other hand some of Saul Steinberg’s masks I find really funny, for instance the angry looking mask on the woman crossing her legs. Some of his masks I can see in a weird fashion photo shoot at the same time (like the woman in the leopard print coat) so I suppose that would be regarded as serious?