The Jewish Museum and The New York Public Library have jointly acquired the complete series of 57 gouaches on paper created by designer, author, illustrator, and artist Maira Kalman for the 2005 edition of The Elements of Style. 

In The Elements of Style  Maira Kalman adapts the well-known reference book of the same name by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (originally published by Strunk in 1918, and revised by White in 1959), pairing her irreverent illustrations with its grammatical rules. Known to generations of aspiring writers and English students, Kalman discovered the book at a used bookstore around 2002. She found it so amusing and subject to visual interpretation that it became her most beloved project to date.

Maira Kalman observed, "Since I am Jewish and since I adore libraries, isn't it thrilling that these two glorious institutions share the work. I make books. And I make art. The works are the intersection of these, mixed with a great dollop of curiosity. In a kind of Talmudic manner, I think E.B. White would be pleased. Doesn't it all make complete wonderful sense!"

Of Kalman's paintings for The Elements of Style, there are various complex and almost always humorous relationships to the text. In one painting, Kalman depicts a romantic couple seated outdoors with the female looking longingly away from her man to illustrate the text about comparative pronouns, "Polly loves cake more than she loves me." In another, a guilty expression accompanies a basset hound in the caption of parenthetic phrases, "Well, Susan, this is a fine mess you are in."

In 2017, the Julie Saul Gallery showed the entire series of illustrations for the first time. Although the artist has sold other works from previous collections to individual collectors, Kalman chose to keep the illustrations for The Elements of Style as one body of work. At the time of publication it also became an original opera written by the young prodigy Nico Muhly in collaboration with Kalman, commissioned by the Library. It was performed in the Rose Main Reading Room at the iconic branch on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue in October 2005 and subsequently at Lincoln Center and the Dia Foundation in Beacon, NY.

In 2011, the Jewish Museum exhibited Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World), a retrospective of Kalman's work organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. In addition to The Elements of Style series, the Jewish Museum's collection includes six works on paper by Kalman and in 2014, the Museum commissioned Kalman to create a mural, In This Life, There Was Very Much (2015), for its restaurant, Russ & Daughters at the Jewish Museum.

The Library named Kalman a Library Lion in 2015, awarded for her contributions to New York City and the creative community at large. In honor of the event celebrating her accomplishments and those of her fellow honorees, Kalman selected an illustration from The Elements of Style series for a public display. She is also currently working on illustrations for a book about libraries to be published in partnership with Macmillan and the Library.

Header image credit: Hot Day. Book found. Aha! Words cannot express. If Only I could. Without a doubt. Goodness. Good. Good. Good. Maira Kalman
Maira Kalman (American, b. Israel, 1949)
Elements of Style, 2004-17
Gouache on paper
20 1/4 x 17 1/4 in.
The Jewish Museum, New York and The New York Public Library