Women Holding Things

“In Women Holding Things, artist Kalman—an uncommon philosopher of the quietly magnificent in the mundane—celebrates all the things we hold. […] The tender, infinitely expressive paintings are captioned with spare words that lend each vignette an extra air of human fragility and resilience.” — Maria Popova, The Marginalian“The prospect of reading and looking at Kalman’s work gets my heart moving like a squirmy animal. This is not a hyperbole. The excitement, I think, is in how she is able to locate the elusive sweet spot of poignant and funny, along with the often-dark complexities behind these emotions. I feel like I will learn something new about people, myself.” — Literary Hub“When [Maira] Kalman looked at her archives, she noticed that she had a large collection of photographs of women holding things. […] The project that germinated […] “Women Holding Things,” gathers dozens of new images and some previously unpublished ones.” — New Yorker”Kalman’s images encompass both everyday pleasures and incomprehensible loss, always affirming art’s sustaining grace.” — Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic of the New York Times“I love Maira Kalman. I love her painting, I love her perspective, I love her handwriting, and I love her books, which somehow contain all of those things and so much more. Maira is a gift to the world, and her gifts should also be your gifts. They will certainly be my gifts.”  — Emma Straub, Bookstore Owner and Author“The mega-talented writer and artist Maira Kalman presents, in radiant color, Women Holding Things. Kalman’s brief texts are thoughtful, autobiographical, powerful. This life-affirming book shines a light on women’s lives and how we all hold our humanity.” — Sandee Brawarsky, Hadassah Magazine

Maira Kalman is an author and illustrator of numerous books for adults and children. She is a contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Times. Born in Tel Aviv, she lives in New York City.