This book's title may suggest a wry boast: the artist Maira Kalman (Looking at Lincoln; And the Pursuit of Happiness) is so good that she can fascinate readers with a book of paintings featuring merely stationary humans holding everyday objects. Of course, what people "hold" can exist outside the realm of the physical. Kalman's plainspoken accompanying text begins: "What do women hold?/ The home and the family./ And the children and the food./ The friendships./ The work./ The work of the world./ And the work of being human." What follows in Women Holding Things are dozens of loose and lovely paintings, marked with conspicuous brushstrokes, of one or more women or girls holding something: a chicken, a baby, "opinions about modern art" and so on.
Kalman often depicts her relatives (e.g., her mother-in-law and twin sister "holding a grudge"). Some of her subjects are famous: Virginia Woolf is "barely holding it together." Several subjects move Kalman to further contemplation. A painting of the artist Louise Bourgeois's sister segues into a painting of "Louise's home in NYC./ She held the wolves at bay./ Or rather, invited them in." As ever, Kalman's color combinations are revelatory; like Matisse, she reliably assembles palettes that seem new to the world. The cumulative effect is so spellbinding that readers may not notice that Kalman slips in a few images of men before acknowledging them: "Speaking of men,/ they are here./ And that is/ not a bad thing." And speaking of Matisse, there's a painting of him, too. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer