This week’s Weekly has my short a-list preview of Maira Kalman’s presentation at the First Person Festival. Below is the copy with a picture.
Maira Kalman brings her whimsical paintings and worldly observations to Philadelphia in the artist’s multimedia presentation for the First Person Arts Festival. Kalman paints with an old-fashioned sensibility that’s part Florine Stettheimer and part Andy Warhol—wry, fashionable and naive. Kalman—a New Yorker cover artist and children’s book author—makes friendly paintings that gush like a wide-eyed kid over animals, plants, candy, cake, hats, hair and words. The juicy paintings of people and places from her life are annotated with quips and observations that are just this side of fey—but you forgive them because the art is so robust, humane and lovable. Her presentation will immerse you in the world of tea and muffins on a chilly November day.
For more on the artist see her website. And for lots of images from her new book, The Principles of Uncertainty, see her blog at the NY Times website, where the images ran as a stream of consciousness journal over the last year. The blog’s on hiatus now but will be back next year. Kalman had a show of her Elements of Style paintings at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery in 2005. More recently, she was in the group show, The Handmaking, at Abington Art Center.
“Life From Cover to Cover”
Sun., Nov. 11, 2pm. $10. First Person Stage, 2111 Sansom St. 267.402.2055.
