Jessica Gross | Longreads | November 2015 | 19 minutes (4,880 words)
Few things remind me of how much beauty there is in the world as clearly and reliably as Maira Kalman’s work. An author, artist and designer, Kalman has written and illustrated dozens of books for children and adults, including The Principles of Uncertainty and And the Pursuit of Happiness, both originally columns for The New York Times; done sketchbooks and covers for The New Yorker; curated museum exhibits; illustrated Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and Michael Pollan’s Food Rules—I could go on indefinitely. What unites her work is not only her aesthetic style—vibrant paintings, overlaid with whimsical lettering, usually involving a large dose of quirk and whimsy—but her determined discovery of what it means to be alive. Kalman’s work often begins with the reportorial, and she has a keen eye for minute, but transporting, details. In transferring what she sees to the page, she affords the reader entrée into her sense of wonder and studied optimism—and into the deepest existential questions there are.
I would have grabbed at almost any excuse to interview Kalman, but it just so happened that she was about to publish a book on one of my favorite subjects: dogs. When her husband, the graphic designer Tibor Kalman, passed away at 49, Kalman—who until then had been terrified of dogs—got an Irish Wheaton named Pete. It was an abrupt about-face, and nominally for the children; to her surprise, Kalman fell in love. In Beloved Dog, she presents a compilation of her pieces featuring dogs: a whole lot of them, it turns out. Read more…
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