Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman Rhythm, Repetition, Collection

Kalman considering possible topics of conversation with the reader, were they to meet

Maira Kalman Who is she?

Maira Kalman was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv. She moved to New York with her family at the of four, and attended the School of Art and Music. After marrying Tibor Kalman she began assisting him with his design company M&Co, although most of her own work has been illustrative, including covers for the New York Times as well as some columns, three children’s books which she wrote, and two illustrated blogs for the New York Times, both of which have now been compiled in book form.

Illustration of a “magnificent” chair

Maira Kalman How does she write?

Due to her literary experience, much of her work has a very strong sense of rhythm. In Principles of Uncertainty, a blog she wrote chronicling a year in her life, she moves fluidly from one thought to the next in a stream of consciousness style. While her thoughts sometimes change abruptly, it is never confusing, and you almost get the sense that you are reading a poem that someone translated into prose. There is a singsong quality to it, and it feels as though she might be de-constructing a sonnet. You can almost hear an iambic pentameter when reading the work aloud. In a much less formal sense, reading her writing is a little like reading Kay Thompson’s Eloise all grown up. She tells you what she thinks of people, harping on details that, while unimportant in the long run, are the things we notice as we go through the world.

Illustration of a suitcase in Kalman’s living room

Principles of Uncertainty p. 86

photos of some of Kalman’s collections, pictured at the back of Principles of Uncertainty

Maira Kalman Collections and Repetition Her fondness for repetition can also be seen in the almost obsessive collections of things that she maintains: interesting paper baggies, tags, things that fall out of books, pictures of couches on the side of the road, people wearing jaunty hats, elderly people with funny walks, sinks, arrangements of fruit, different mosses from Long Island, postcards from the Hotel Celeste in Tunisia, empty boxes, sponges from around the world, whistles, candy, suitcases, things she finds at flea markets, interesting numbers, and pictures of people walking down the street

Maira Kalman Rhythm and Repetition This sort of style is especially apparent in her book Principles of Uncertainty, which follows her life over the course of the year.

In this book her love of rhythm is very present, mostly through the strong sense of repetition. She continuously uses the word “and�, as well as repeating a phrase over and over.

The tone of her work also changes in a rhythmic way; she will be whimsical one moment, then contemplative the next, always followed up by more whimsy. She allows the viewer to fall into a sense of comfort, although they are never allowed to remain stagnant as the rhythm keeps on going, always changing around.

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Principles of Uncertainty p. 180

A cover of The New Yorker by Kalman

spread from (un)Fashion

Maira Kalman Repetition of Imagery

Visually, she uses her own handwriting as a way of creating a natural rhythm and flow. It becomes hard to imagine how the work would translate if typeset; so much of the informal flow and beauty would be lost.

Even in her illustrations she seems to be repetitive, and most of her illustrations, particularly the covers she has done for the New York Times, are full on portraits of people, over and over.

This type of repetition of the imagery of people is mirrored in the book she helped to bring to completion after her husband died, (un)Fashion. In the book there is no type, and it is just photo after photo of people and the clothes they wear. Much like her collections, these photos have been painstakingly accumulated over the years and laid out in such a way that you can sense a certain obsessiveness about the project. Although she didn’t design this book herself, her sensibilities can be felt throughout it. It is all repetition and through repetition a rhythm is created.

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