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There are Men in the Village of Erith, from the series Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes

Artist/Maker (American, 1898–1976)
Date1944
MediumPen and ink on paper
DimensionsOverall: 11 1/4 × 10 7/16 in. (28.5 × 26.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Keith Warner
PortfolioThree Young Rats and Other Rhymes
Object number1962.9
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:
There are men in the village of Erith
Whom nobody seeth or heareth,
And there looms, on the marge
Of the river, a barge,
Which nobody roweth or steereth.
Exhibition History
Complementary Exhibition to Prints in Series: Aldegrever to Warhol
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 11, 1978 - February 12, 1978 )
Representing the Word: Modern Book Illustrations
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 29, 2013 - June 30, 2013 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary