Drawing Rooms

“Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World),” which opens Friday at the Jewish Museum, will be catnip to fans of the artist, whose books, New Yorker covers and illustrated on-line columns for The New York Times are beloved for their humor, whimsy and insight, and rendered with an irresistible eye for color and composition. The exhibition, which was curated by Ingrid Schaffner for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, features 100 of Kalman’s paintings, drawings and sketches, along with photographs, embroidery and other works, including her fabric and digital wallcovering for Maharam. The paintings take up two of the show’s three galleries; the third is filled with objects that regularly find their way from Kalman’s life to her art, like a jar of buttons, a Slinky or the pink-wrapped gift package from India that she deemed too beautiful ever to be opened. (Kalman’s painting of that package can be seen in the first gallery.) An early version of the unforgettable “New Yorkistan” cover that she and Rick Meyerowitz did for The New Yorker is particularly fascinating, but then so is a broom that hangs — from a hardware-store clip — on the bright red wall that introduces the show. Next to it, Kalman wrote that when the broom was missing, viewers could find her sweeping the sidewalk on the park side of Fifth Avenue, a task she performs regularly as a volunteer for the Central Park Conservancy. Her accumulations of stuff, including chairs and ladders made by her children, Alex and Lulu, look oddly at home in the galleries, with their high ceilings and elaborately carved woodwork, and her decision to put two tufted poufs, covered in the Maharam fabric, in the middle of the second gallery adds to the show’s hospitable air, as if Kalman might appear at any moment with tea and cookies. She will, however, be at the museum on March 11 and 18 from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, to sell (with the proceeds going to charity) some of her signature subject matter (like egg slicers or cans of mushy peas) as well as pieces from her own collection that, she said, “no longer need to be owned by me.” The exhibition runs through July 31.

A blog post on March 9 about an exhibition of Maria Kalman’s work at the Jewish Museum omitted the name of the designer of the installation and graphics. It is Cooper Joseph Studio.

More source:

Drawing room - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Drawing Rooms - NYTimes.com
The Drawing Rooms Berry - Luxury Bed and Breakfast Accomodation
The Drawing Room, contemporary drawing, London

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Submited at Saturday, March 12th, 2011 at 1:00 am on House by Alina
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