Skip to main content

Three Little Mice Sat Down to Spin, from the series Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes

Artist/Maker (American, 1898–1976)
Date1944
MediumPen and ink on paper
DimensionsOverall: 11 1/8 × 10 3/8 in. (28.3 × 26.3 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Keith Warner
PortfolioThree Young Rats and Other Rhymes
Object number1962.10
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Alexander Calder / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NYMore Information
Alexander Calder made a series of 85 drawings to illustrate Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes, a whimsical book of anonymous nursery-rhymes edited by James Johnson Sweeney and published by the dealer Curt Valentin in 1944. The artist’s playful and sometimes humorous interpretations of the rhymes are rendered in a simplified and continuous linear style. These compositions recall Calder’s imaginative wire sculptures, impressively formed out of single pieces of thin wire to resemble line drawings in three-dimensional space.

The corresponding rhyme for this drawing reads:
Three little mice sat down to spin.
Pussy passed by and she peeped in.
“What are you at, my fine little men?”
“Making coats for gentlemen.”
“Shall I come in and cut off your threads?”
“Oh no, Mistress Pussy, you’d bite off our heads!”
Exhibition History
Complementary Exhibition to Prints in Series: Aldegrever to Warhol
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 11, 1978 - February 12, 1978 )
The Child's Eye: From Klee to Disney
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (May 5, 1981 - August 1, 1981 )
Representing the Word: Modern Book Illustrations
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 29, 2013 - June 30, 2013 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary