Women Holding Things

“Women Holding Things includes the bright, bold images featured in the booklet as well as an additional sixty-seven new paintings highlighted by thoughtful and intimate anecdotes, recollections, and ruminations. Most are portraits of women, both ordinary and famous, including Virginia Woolf, Sally Hemings, Hortense Cezanne, Gertrude Stein, as well as Kalman’s family members and other real-life people. These women hold a range of objects, from the mundane–balloons, a cup, a whisk, a chicken, a hat–to the abstract–dreams and disappointments, sorrow and regret, joy and love.

Women Holding Things explores the significance of the objects we carry–in our hands, hearts, and minds–and speaks to, and for, all of us. Maira Kalman’s unique work is a celebration of life, of the act and the art of living, offering an original way of examining and understanding all that is important in our world–and ultimately within ourselves.” —