Maira Kalman: Women Holding Things

October 6 – November 12, 2022

Maira Kalman, Kiki in the Garden, 2022, Gouache, Framed Dimensions: 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Kiki in the Garden, 2022
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to present Women Holding Things, a collection of over 30 new paintings by Maira Kalman. Created during the pandemic, it is a love song to the women in our world. This will be Kalman’s debut exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery.

“What do women hold?” Kalman asks. “The home and the family. And the children and the food. The friendships. The work. The work of the world. And the work of being human. The memories. And the troubles. And the sorrows and the triumphs. And the love.

Maira Kalman Woman in the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

Woman in the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Maira Kalman, Woman in Yellow Scarf, 2021

Woman in Yellow Scarf, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Women Holding Things began in the spring of 2021 as Kalman and her son, Alex Kalman, created a limited-edition booklet by the same name which served as the conceptual basis of the publication and exhibition opening this fall. The booklet, which began as a fundraiser in support of charities combatting hunger, expanded to a full book published by HarperCollins with eighty-six paintings illustrating Kalman’s meditations on womanhood. The exhibition on view at Mary Ryan Gallery will include over thirty of the paintings originally published in the book. Each work on view is characterized by Kalman’s trademark style and use of dense gouache to create richly colored paintings on paper.

The Family in 1931, Lenin, 2021
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Training her sensitive eye on the inimitable women in her life, Kalman captures with quiet power the essence of women that have captured her imagination via the objects that fit between their hands—from books to cabbages—and the wealth of meaning ascribed to these objects. In a tour de force of visual storytelling, she gently reveals the universality of the things her subjects hold dear—the things that burden, haunt, and nourish them. The objects held are tools—and occasionally, evidence—of a life lived, and as such, the inanimate objects captured in Kalman’s paintings are each pinned by the hope, joy and sadness of those that carry them.

Maira Kalman Lulu Holding a Birthday Cake

Lulu Holding a Birthday Cake, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

The figures holding things in Kalman’s paintings include a wide range of women. Some, like Gertrude Stein, Edith Sitwell, Ayana V. Jackson, or Kiki Smith, are well known. Others, such as Kalman’s daughter, granddaughters, or cousin Iris, are fixtures of Kalman’s intimate life. Also included in Women Holding Things are select portraits of men, including Rilke and Chekhov and Kalman’s father. Finally, there are portraits of objects holding things. All of Kalman’s subjects hold a rich interiority.

Woman Carrying Ill Dog, 2022
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman Holding Chicken, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Virginia Woolf with Her Dog Pinka, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman Holding a Pink Ukulele Under a Giant Cherry Tree, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman Carrying Balloons in the Park, 2022
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Woman With Hand on Hip, 2022
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Matisse Painting in Bed, 2020
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Hortense Cézanne and Granddaughter, 2021
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Louise Bourgeois' Sister, 2020
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

My Mother Holding Her Sister the Day of Her Ill-fated Marriage, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman Holding Opinions About Modern Art, 2021
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

The Stanley Sink, 2015
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Louise Bourgeois' Home in NYC, 2022
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Cézanne's Cherries, 2022
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Matisse with Odalisque, 2020
Gouache
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm)

Girl Holding Doll and Book, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

A Chair Can Hold a Hat, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Toscanini with His Daughter Wanda, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman Holding Hand on Green Table, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Girl Holding Pink Balloons, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Vase with Poppies, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

The Plumpest Raspberry Tassels, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Mother Holding the Hand of Her Child As They Are Being Killed By Nazi Soldiers, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)

Woman in Pink Skirt Holding onto Her Hat, 2021
Gouache
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)