THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, I interview one of the most renowned artists working in the world right now, Mickalene Thomas. 

Working across painting, photography, installation, film, collage and more, Thomas, for the past two decades has been instrumental in forging an identity for figuration in the 21st century. Positioning her subjects – bold, beautiful women – in often large-scale work that commands the same power as that of Old Master Painting, Thomas lionises her subjects, whether they be friends, family members or lovers, by imbuing them with glittering rhinestone crystals and rich, colourful patterning, in atmospheres that are full of freedom, full of liberation. 

Drawing from pop culture and history – think Grace Jones to the 19th century French painters – and striving to encapsulate the beauty and glamour she witnessed in Jet magazine when growing up, Thomas also re-stages, reclaims, art-historical compositions by reworking paintings from the lens of a Black queer woman. 

In 2013, she said: ‘Portraits are very powerful. They have a great representation and dominance in the world... of trying to capture the essence of someone’ and just to prove how powerful this was on her own career, it was after seeing legendary photographer Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series, 1990 that Thomas was inspired to pursue art. Switching from law and enrolling in art school at the Pratt Institute, Thomas then went on to earn her MFA from Yale, and has since worked indefatigably to elevate the presence of Black women in art.
 
Thomas has exhibited at the world’s most prestigious institutions, from the Brooklyn Museum to MOCA Los Angeles, Spellman College to the ICA in Boston, but she has also been a force at uplifting the careers of others – such as, in recent shows, curating exhibitions alongside her own featuring younger names, making for a more exciting and inclusive art history, that others have followed her in doing. 

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Mikaela Carmichael
Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner
Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY OCULA: https://ocula.com/

Mickalene Thomas

I couldn’t be more excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most renowned writers, curators, critics, and cultural commentators in the world right now… Hilton Als! 

A Pulitzer prize winner, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the theatre critic at the New Yorker, where he has been writing since 1994, Als is also the author of numerous books – from White Girls (a collection of 13 literary essays, exploring race, gender, interpersonal relationships) to more recently, My Pinup, an intimate study on his friendship with Prince. He is a teaching professor at Berkeley, and has held previous posts at Columbia, Yale, and more. 

Als has been one of my favourite writers, and curators, on art since I can remember. He writes in a manner that is intimate, with emotion and rigour, infusing it with stories from his upbringing in Crown Heights in Brooklyn to ones with more complex family dynamics. 

And there is a humanity at the centre of it: whether it's his ability to make us see artists as people – with their struggles, desires, needs and complexities – or his belief that we can all be artists too. Often tracing the city of New York through images and words, he unearths stories that were often cast out from mainstream institutions but feel so pertinent for the world today. From Alice Neel to Diane Arbus, whose work and subject he treats with such empathy, not only can he transport us to the exact street where Arbus took that picture, or to Neel’s 108th street apartment, but writes so acutely on the mediums they used. 

On photography vs painting he has said: The former takes life as it comes, in an instant, but can be described as a series of selective moments. Painting, on the other hand, has time on its side, the better to know, delve, and express what it’s like for two people to sit in a room, observing one another while talking or not talking about the world.

And it is the latter that I still remember experiencing, being a gallery assistant in my early 20s at Victoria Miro, at the time of one of his many brilliant curated exhibitions – Alice Neel, Uptown – when I saw the whole world walk in, recognise themselves and feel seen and celebrated – which, I think, is the best outcome an exhibition can have… 

In this episode we discuss the power of language and the importance of sharing it; Hilton's introductions to art; his early days as a photo-editor that informed him as a curator; and his takes on Diane Arbus and Alice Neel. 

HILTON'S WRITING + CURATING:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308056/white-girls-by-als-hilton/9780141987293
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2022/joan-didion-what-she-means
https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2019/god-made-my-face-collective-portrait-james-baldwin
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/26/alice-neels-portraits-of-difference
https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2017/alice-neel-uptown-curated-hilton-als
https://www.davidzwirnerbooks.com/product/alice-neel-uptown

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

Hilton Als on Diane Arbus and Alice Neel

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the world-renowned Classics scholar and professor at the University of Cambridge, Caroline Vout! 

Today we are discussing all sorts of figures in Classics, from Venus to Hermaphroditus. 

Born in Durham, Vout studied for a BA at Newnham College Cambridge, completed her MA at the Courtauld, and PhD back in Cambridge, where she spent a very formative year as a Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome. Since 2006, she has been based in Cambridge where she is a Fellow at Christ’s College. 

The author of seven formative books that have expanded my mind on the Ancient world, our thinking around gendered bodies, imperfect bodies, and the perception of women through these vessels, from Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present to the more recently published “Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body”, Vout has been instrumental in pushing forwarding Classical research. Next year, she will curate a major exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum 

But the reason why we are speaking with Carrie Vout today is because of how her research challenges the ideal forms of the Greek and Roman body. Whereas a body cast in marble or bronze sitting atop a pedestal might be the template that we have – and one that European painters have so often perpetuated through idealised portrayals of men and women – Vout argues this is a lie, and that ancient bodies were in fact anxious, ailing, imperfect, diverse, and in turn, much more like us than we might at first glean.

CARRIE'S BOOKS: 
https://www.waterstones.com/book/exposed/caroline-vout/9781788162906

https://www.waterstones.com/book/classical-art/caroline-vout/9780691177038

https://www.waterstones.com/book/sex-on-show/caroline-vout/9780714122786

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

Caroline Vout on Venus, Hermaphroditus, and other Classical Bodies in Art

Caroline Vout on Classical Bodies in Art

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most brilliant writers around today, Lauren Elkin! On today's episode we speak about feminist pioneers, Carolee Schneemann and Hannah Wilke!! 

Elkin is an American in London who has lived and spent extensive time in Paris, Liverpool, Tokyo, Venice and New York – as outlined in one of my favourite of her books, Flaneuse, which sees her trace cities through the eyes and steps of female writers and artists as the feminine “flaneur”, one who walks aimlessly. She is excellent at making her own a term or a trait previously steeped in patriarchal meaning. 

The author of four books, and the translator of others – including of Simone de Beauvoir’s unpublished novel, The Inseparables – Elkin has received numerous awards for her writing. She has been a cultural critic for the likes of the New York Times, Harpers, London Review of Books, TLS, Frieze, and more; holds a PhD in English; an M.Phil in French; and is currently working on biographies on the likes of avant-garde tastemaker Getrude Stein and artist Louise Bourgeois. 

But! One of the reasons why we are speaking with Elkin today is because she has recently published a fantastic book, Art Monsters, which looks at a variety of female artists – from Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun to Laura Knight; Betye Saar to Carolee Schneemann; Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke; Kara Walker and Maria Lassnig – who have centred their practice around the body. Exploring those who reacted against patriarchal portrayals and ideas of the body, Art Monsters is a fascinating insight into how women have broken from the historically-weighted past and configured a language using a voice unique to them. 

LAUREN'S BOOKS: 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/art-monsters/lauren-elkin/9781784742935

https://www.waterstones.com/book/flaneuse/lauren-elkin/9780099593379

https://www.waterstones.com/book/no-91-92-notes-on-a-parisian-commute/lauren-elkin/9781838014186

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

Lauren Elkin on Carolee Schneemann and Hannah Wilke

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the renowned art historian, Kirsten Pai Buick to discuss EDMONIA LEWIS!

Edmonia Lewis (1844–1907) is hailed for her stunningly chiselled marble busts and figurative sculptures – with their elegantly coiled hair, elastic-like folds of drapery, idealised nudes with strong, robust builds. She was the first sculptor of African American heritage (of any gender) to achieve such fame and recognition. 

Buick is the author of a highly distinguished book Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject – about the sculptor acclaimed for her marble busts and figures that portray local people to mythical subjects, as well as deal with vital political narratives of the late 1800s. 

In this episode we go into depth about Lewis's life and work – focussing on how Lewis reworked classical narratives from a distinctly female perspective. We also look at how she interpreted vital political narratives of the time in artworks such as Forever Free, 1867, referencing the Emancipation Proclamation of four years previously. Originally titled The Morning of Liberty, this smaller-than-life-size, yet weighty and mighty statuette immortalises an empowered, freed African American couple. Muscular and heroic, on the right we see a Herculean male figure breaking from his chains and raising a clenched fist. 

Buick’s vital scholarship explores the material and visual culture of the first British Empire, the art of the US, African American art, landscape representation, women as patrons and collectors of art. She also focuses on pro- and anti-abolitionist images in the Atlantic world.

In 2022, Buick was named Distinguished Scholar by the College Art Association, and is currently working on a book – In Authenticity: Kara Walker and the Eidetics of Racism, about the artist renowned for her work that dismantles racist imagery through cut outs, and colossal sculptures, challenging the imperialist language that surrounds us.

ENJOY!!

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Kirsten Buick on Edmonia Lewis

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most renowned artists alive today, Doris Salcedo. 

Born in Colombia, where she is based today, Salcedo, is hailed for her mid to colossal-scale sculptures and public installations that push the boundary of the artform, while simultaneously addressing vital political narratives of Colombian history of conflict that also have the power to transcend both time and geographies. 

Salcedo challenges scale and perspective; materials and everyday objects, and although the physical breadth of her work might be extensive, humanity remains the centre of it – as she has said: “I address the experiences of those who dwell on the borders, on the periphery of life and in the depths of catastrophe.”

By incorporating materials that speak to the presence of a human being – whether it be chairs, desks, shoes and more, or working with people and the names of the innocent people who have lost their lives – Salcedo’s work points to absence, loss, memory. Works have ranged from slotting and stacking 1,500 chairs between two buildings on a street in Istanbul to filling domestic items with cement – creating an atmosphere of silence, of mourning. 

She has exhibited all over the world, in the most acclaimed institutions worldwide, and in 2007, she showed at Tate Modern with a work called Shibboleth, which saw her excavate a crack into the concrete ground, which is a work that could be viewed from multiple perspectives but which also – when not looking properly – could easily be missed. And it’s this idea of looking in Salcedo’s work that I find so interesting – because by getting us to look further, she gets us to question beyond our everyday experiences, what we witness in the media, the futile lines that divide this world, to ensure for a fairer and more equal society.

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Doris Salcedo

I am so excited to say that my guest on the great women artists podcast is the renowned curator, scholar, and expert in 15th- and 16th-century Italian drawings, Furio Rinaldi to discuss TAMARA DE LEMPICKA!

Dubbed “the Baroness with the Brush'', Lempicka at the height of the 1920s found herself at the centre of Parisian life, and constructed some of the most radical, liberal and avant-garde images. From reworking traditional subjects to melding the meticulous techniques of Renaissance painting with cold and shiny art-deco aesthetics to evoke the fast-industrialising world.

Born in Poland at the end of the 19th century, Lempicka was raised in Russia, but escaped at the outbreak of the revolution. From there, she settled in Paris: the centre of the avant-garde, and thrived. She painted celebrated characters in the highest fashions of the day, and embraced sexual liberations.

Epitomising the modern woman, she was apparently known to break only for “baths and champagne”, this was, of course in her modernist apartment-slash-studio, designed by her equally successful sister, Adrienne Górska.

Currently holding the post of Curator of drawings and prints at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest collection of works on paper in Western United States – where he has just staged the most extraordinary Botticelli exhibition – Furio is acclaimed for his work on Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. 

A writer – he has published extensively in The Burlington Magazine, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal and more, but perhaps he is best known for his curatorial eye, having organised the fantastic Legion of Honor exhibition Color into Line: Pastel from the Renaissance to the Present, and next year, will curate a groundbreaking exhibition – and the first major show on the West Coast – on the Polish-born painter Tamara de Lempicka – who is very excitingly the artists we will be discussing today.

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Furio Rinaldi on Tamara de Lempicka

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most groundbreaking artists working today, Karon Davis.

Hailed for her life-size sculptures, that she covers in white plaster dust and bases on her own or friend’s bodies, Davis’s works often take the form of installations, that very powerfully explore vital narratives of current and historical political events, as well as speak to the history of dance and performance. While they speak on a universal level, Davis especially looks to issues of history, race and violence in the US, memorialising key injustices witnessed by innocent victims from the 20th century, and beyond. By executing her figures in a stark shade of white, she also speaks to Western beauty ideals and standards that have been entrenched in our society since classical times. 

Brought up by a family of performers, Davis was exposed to the arts at a young age, the excitement of entertainment but also the reality of what people with these careers go through. And it’s this insight that she gives us in her work – showing us both the pain and ecstasy to make something deemed beautiful, as her mother said, which was the title for her recent Salon 94 show: Beauty Must Suffer. 

Although a trained ballerina in her youth, Davis turned to filmmaking, studying at Spellman College, but her love of performance has stayed with her in her work. Entering an exhibition by Davis is like stepping into another world akin to watching a film or ballet playing out in front of you: there’s narrative, costume, drama, a beginning and an end, but also beauty and pain. 

In 2012 Davis, along with her late husband Noah, founded the Underground Museum in Los Angeles, a groundbreaking space that featured the work of Black artists. And, most recently, Davis’ work has been featured at the Hammer Museum, Jeffrey Deitch, Salon 94, and is in the collection of MOCA Los Angeles, LACMA, The Hammer Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others. For those in New York, she has just installed a major sculpture on the High Line, of a ballerina taking her final bow, in conjunction with her exhibition that looked at the process of ballet, as well as the passion and resilience integral to life as a dancer, and artist.

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Karon Davis

THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, @katy.hessel interviews is one of the world's most influential artists: Barbara Kruger.

Hailed for her distinctive poster-style language, Kruger merges text and image to bring attention to urgent political concerns. Bold, loud and readily available, her tabloid-esque works confront everyday issues. And, evocative of advertising, have the ability to bring meaning to often meaningless signage. 

Born in Newark, NJ, and educated at Syracuse then Parsons, where she was taught by the late great Diane Arbus, Kruger began as an art director for Condé Nast, where she shaped her visual language. As she has said, “I had the luxury of working with the best technology ... I became attached to sans serif type, especially Futura and Helvetica, which I chose because they could really cut through the grease.”

Fast forward to the 1970s and 80s – a highly political moment in America: especially for the control over one’s body – and Kruger is culminating text/images that speak to Laura Mulvey’s landmark 1975 essay on the male gaze, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", and that protest anti abortion laws. Her work defined a new type of art that directly addressed power and control, championing the rights we should have over our bodies, life and world. 

Today, she is still at the forefront with her work – immersive and on the wall – that feels familiar due to its evocation of the machine we know as capitalism, that both drives us and that we drive. For those lucky enough to be in London, Kruger is very excitingly having her first institutional show in London in over 20 years, at Serpentine Galleries: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. Opening TODAY, until 17 March 2024.

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

ENJOY!!!

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Barbara Kruger

THIS WEEK on the GWA Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews Catherine Morris of the Brooklyn Museum, on the great artist JUDITH SCOTT – launching on what would have been Scott's 81st birthday!!

Scott (1943–2005) was an American artist hailed for her fibre-based sculptures that merge wheels, trolleys, locks and chairs with bundles of threads, and whose brilliantly inventive methods and obsessively spun sculptures cocoon found objects. They also served as a form of communication – which is particularly extraordinary for someone who couldn’t hear or speak verbally. A twin – her sister Joyce was born without disabilities – Scott was deaf and had Down syndrome, and through her art, which she discovered later in life, was able to communicate to the outside world.

From the age of seven, she was placed in a series of institutions, enduring horrific conditions for more than 35 years. Sadly, she was born before the kind of legal protections that were implemented after scandals such as Willowbrook, a New York facility in which disabled children were brutalised, while the disability rights campaign, which took place in tandem with other social justice movements of the 60s and 70s, was some way off.

It wasn’t until 1985, when Joyce became her legal guardian and enrolled her at Creative Growth, that Scott turned to art. While she made nothing for her first two years at the centre, after taking part in a fibre art workshop she became obsessed by threads, spending every day until her death fastidiously wrapping and spinning fibres around objects, transforming them into her extraordinary creations.

I'm thrilled to be able to speak to Catherine Morris, who curated a great exhibition of Scott's work at the Brooklyn Museum. Morris holds the post of a feminist art specialist at the Brooklyn Museum, and has co-curated and curated numerous groundbreaking exhibitions – such as Lorraine O’Grady, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985; Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art… Worked on projects with Marilyn Minter, Zanele Muholi, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, and Cecilia Vicuna, as well as the major head-lining-grabbing show, It’s Pablomatic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum last year. 

ENJOY!

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LINKS:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/judith_scott/
https://creativegrowth.org/
https://art21.org/artist/judith-scott/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_n-8P_4IeE&t=66s&ab_channel=BetsyBayha
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/judith-scott-31169
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/apr/29/how-judith-scott-escaped-a-life-in-institutional-isolation-to-become-a-great-sculptor

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.famm.com/en/
https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Catherine Morris on Judith Scott

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA podcast is one of the most exciting artists working in the world right now, Rose B Simpson.

An artist working across mediums that span from sculpture to performance, painting and ceramics, Simpson is hailed for her life size clay figures which she adorns with a plethora of symbols, extended antennas and materials – from steel, beads, leather, and wood... She challenges the nature of sculpture in ways, as she has said, that “can transform my own reality”, and her figures appear to be imbued with spirituality. They have titles like Genesis, Guides, Heights and Vital Organ – accentuating the importance of the body and rituals. 

Simpson was born, and lives and works, in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, and grew up in a multigenerational, matrilineal lineage of artists working in clay, including her mother, whose work is grounded in Pueblo traditions. Her practice is informed by Indigenous tradition, as she has said: “The work represents my own journey, whether it is a psychological investigation or a new spiritual awareness, or practical…” 

A recipient of a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, an MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and another MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2018, storytelling, history and making seems to be at the centre of her practice – something she has expanded on further with her artwork Maria – a black-on-black Lowrider 985 Chevrolet El Camino and artwork and named in honour of Native American artist Maria Martinez, which sits at the heart of her community in Espanola Valley – and I can’t wait to find out more! 

LINKS:
https://www.rosebsimpson.com/works
https://jackshainman.com/artists/rose-b-simpson
https://art21.org/artist/rose-b-simpson/
https://jessicasilvermangallery.com/rose-b-simpson/selected-works/
https://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/rose-b-simpson-legacies/

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.famm.com/en/
https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

Rose B Simpson

Created off the back of @thegreatwomenartists Instagram, this podcast is all about celebrating women artists. Presented by art historian and curator, Katy Hessel, this podcast interviews artists on their career, or curators, writers, or general art lovers, on the female artist who means the most to them.

Mickalene Thomas

The Great Women Artists Podcast

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