Of Lamb retells the story of “Mary had a little lamb” in 106 paintings by Amy Jean Porter and 106 poems by Matthea Harvey. The result is a remarkable collaboration that dips into the surreal, playing with our expectations of narrative, the relationship between text and image, and the bonds between human and animal. All 106 of Porter’s paintings are on view for P.P.O.W’s Project 1. Matthea Harvey’s original erasure of A Portrait of Charles Lamb by David Cecil, which inspired the project, is also being featured. The exhibition coinc... Read more

Of Lamb retells the story of “Mary had a little lamb” in 106 paintings by Amy Jean Porter and 106 poems by Matthea Harvey. The result is a remarkable collaboration that dips into the surreal, playing with our expectations of narrative, the relationship between text and image, and the bonds between human and animal. All 106 of Porter’s paintings are on view for P.P.O.W’s Project 1. Matthea Harvey’s original erasure of A Portrait of Charles Lamb by David Cecil, which inspired the project, is also being featured. The exhibition coincides with Of Lamb’s publication by McSweeney’s.

“Of Lamb is a work of such subtle, haunting, spellbinding beauty it is virtually impossible to describe it. Fantastical and yet, so strangely, achingly ‘real’ in its tracking of love, loss, grief, and again love—an astonishing collaboration between a poet and an artist that defies all categories except Unique.” —Joyce Carol Oates

Amy Jean Porter has for the past ten years considered the intersection between human culture and the natural world through text and image. This is her first collaboration. She has presented solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, and Paris, and her work has been featured in Cabinet, McSweeney’s, The Awl, and elsewhere. Matthea Harvey is the author of three books of poetry: Modern Life (a New York Times Notable Book), Sad Little Breathing Machine, and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form. She is the recipient of the Kingsley Tuft prize.