In the spring of 2021, Maira Kalman created a small, limited-edition companion booklet for her pop-up art show “Women Holding Things,” which featured select images accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. Now Kalman has expanded her original publication into this extraordinary visual compendium.  Women Holding Things includes the bright, bold images featured in the booklet and the pop-up show as well as an additional sixty-seven new paintings highlighted by thoughtful and intimate anecdotes, recollections, and ruminations. Most are portraits of women, both ordinary and famous, including Virginia Woolf, Sally Hemings, Hortense Cezanne, and Gertrude Stein. These women hold a range of objects, from the mundane—balloons, a cup, a whisk—to the abstract—dreams and disappointments, sorrow and regret. Kalman’s unique work is a celebration of life, of the act and the art of living, offering an original way of examining and understanding all that is important in our world—and ultimately within ourselves.