Open the Door and Let Me Through, from the series Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes
Artist/Maker
Alexander Calder
(American, 1898–1976)
Date1944
MediumPen and ink on paper
DimensionsOverall: 11 7/16 × 10 3/8 in. (29 × 26.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Keith Warner
PortfolioThree Young Rats and Other Rhymes
Object number1962.8
Status
Not on viewAlexander 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:
Open the door and let me through!
Not without your buff and blue.
Here’s my buff and there’s my blue.
Open the door and let me through!
Exhibition History
The corresponding rhyme for this drawing reads:
Open the door and let me through!
Not without your buff and blue.
Here’s my buff and there’s my blue.
Open the door and let me through!
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
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