With a foreword by Devin Johnston and studio photographs by Moira Tarmy

Through the drawings and paintings included in Duet (with Chorus), Brian Calvin explores arrangements of figures at once boldly simplified and subtly expressive. In doing so, he works with a basic vocabulary of facial features, fingers, collar, hair, and perhaps a flower behind the ear—all stripped of excess detail. The work arose from a commission, to create an exhibit to accompany Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera. As Calvin explains his approach, “Rather than illustrating scenes from the plot of Così fan tutte, I lingered on the organizing principle of duets in Mozart’s opera, exploring harmony and dissonance through repetition and difference.”

“At once keenly observed and cartoonishly abstract, Calvin’s twin-peaked lips and how-to-draw-’em eyes play foil to the wiliest and wittiest of painterly inventions.”—Artforum