Nama is a sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker, whose work is dominated by a life-long commitment to books and poetry. His oeuvre includes many portfolios made in collaboration with poets such as Yves Bonnefoy, Alfred Brendel, and, since 2006, Charles Simic. This drawing is a preparatory study for an etching included in the portfolio "Wonders of the Invisible World and other Poems," with poems by Simic and ten etchings by Nama (a copy of this portfolio is in the Morgan's collection). Nama has noted that the poem "Calamity Crier" evoked in him a memory of encountering Giacometti's Walking Man as a youth at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. The subject of the drawing, a headless puppet, relates to his work as a sculptor. Fragments of old printing on the edges of the sheet reveal that the drawing is made on pages from an old book, a support favored by Nama for the layers of associations it adds to the work.
"Calamity Crier" is a poem by Charles Simic from "Wonders of the Invisible World"
Stamped on lower right with the artist's stamp, "N", and signed in graphite, "NAMA".