The Great Women Artists

TODAY on the GWA Podcast is curator and writer Lisa Le Feuvre, on the acclaimed land artist NANCY HOLT! The curator of over 75 exhibitions, including Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson at Marian Goodman Gallery, and Joan Jonas: An Island Departure at Farnsworth Art Museum among many others, Lisa Le Feuvre is also the executive director of the Holt Smithson Foundation, where she dedicates her work to the two pioneers of twentieth century art, hailed for their site specific interventions in the land – Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt, the latter of whom we are very excitedly discussing today. Born in 1938 in Massachusetts and raised in New Jersey, Holt worked for over five decades across poetry, photography, film, outdoor, public sculpture commissions, room-sized installations and more. Central to the group of artists living and working in New York City in the 1960s, Holt, with Smithson, ventured further afield to the great expansive desert of the American West, and it was here where she found her language.…

It's a new season of The Great Women Artists Podcast and we're kicking things off with the esteemed ceramicist and writer, Edmund de Waal! Hailed for his ceramic works that come in the form of fragments, cylindrical pots, individually or collectively, or that use techniques such as the Japanese kinsugi - broken ceramics put back together with a gold liqueur to beautify its cracks and imperfections - de Waal has become one of the most renowned artists working in pots today. Speaking about his work, he has said, “my fantasy is that people will look at my pots and think: rigorous, yet passionate and humane.” Born in 1964, de Waal grew up mostly in the deanery beside Canterbury Cathedral. He made his first pot aged five, glazing it in opalescent white, as he recalled, and aged seventeen, took an apprenticeship with the potter Geoffrey Whiting before travelling to Tokyo. Here he not only studied ceramics but became acquainted with his Uncle Iggy's collection of netsuke traditional miniature wood ivory carvings,…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed painter Joan Snyder. Hailed for her large-scale gestural canvases that pulsate with colour, line and text, and are often layered with, buried in, or imploded with images of flowers, faces, or bodies, Snyder's all-encompassing works are nothing but electric. Sometimes large scale, with brushstrokes that populate the canvas like gemstones or musical scores with a whole range of keys: look at Snyder's work for a while, and it's like whole worlds emerge. Simultaneously soft but violent, beautiful yet aggressive, her works can evoke every season of emotion, just as she once wrote in her journal in 1972: "The strokes in my painting speak of my life and experiences. They are sometimes soft, they sometimes laugh, and are often violent. They bleed and cry. I speak of love and anguish, of fear, and mostly of hope." Born in 1940, Snyder came to art not straight away, but by chance during her studies at Rutgers University, when she was studying sociology in preparation for a…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: a very special bonus episode with Lubaina Himid, on her British Council Commission for the British Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2026, "Presenting History: Testing Translation". Returning to the podcast for the second time, Lubaina Himid is an acclaimed Lancashire-based artist working in paintings, sculpture, installations, archives, and more, whose career spans from the 1980s – when she was established as one of the leaders and trailblazers of Britain's Black Arts movement – to the 2020s, where she uses her art and her training in theatre to create all-encompassing works that tackle silenced histories. While you can go to episode 33 to hear a deep dive into Himid's life and work, today we are focusing on her pavilion for Great Britain at the 61st Venice Biennale! An event that happens every two years, thought of as the most important space to showcase art and artists, the Venice Biennale revolves around a central exhibition, this year curated by the late Koyo Kouoh, titled "In Minor…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: esteemed art historian Briony Fer on the avant-garde icon, Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The Professor of History of Art at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy, Briony Fer is one of the leading art historians in the world. Writing and publishing extensively on modern and contemporary art, specialising in the history of abstraction in the 20th century, Fer has curated monumental exhibitions on artists such as Anni Albers at the Tate Modern, Louise Bourgeois at the National Museum, Oslo, Eva Hesse at the Fruitmarket, Mel Bochner at Whitechapel, and more But the reason we are speaking with Fer today is because she has also just curated an exhibition “Sophie Taeuber-Arp: The Rule of Curves” at Hauser & Wirth Paris, and published a stunning book on the great artist, dancer, performer, puppet maker, bag weaver, teacher, stained-glass maker, sculptor, architect, and so much more, Sophie Taeuber-Arp… Born in Switzerland in 1889, Taeuber-Arp is famously associated with the…

TODAY on The Great Women Artists podcast is the esteemed writer, Deborah Levy on avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein. The author of several novels, including August Blue, Hot Milk and Swimming Home, alongside the critically acclaimed Living Autobiography trilogy (some of my favourite books of all time): Things I Don't Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate, Deborah Levy is one of the most recognisable and influential writers working today. She has been shortlisted twice each for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Booker Prize, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company. But the reason why we are speaking with Levy today is because she has just published a new novel, My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, which follows a narrator who has travelled to Paris to find out more about Stein, the enigmatic, trailblazing writer and patron; a woman who bolted through the 19th to the 20th century and paved the way for modernism as we know it today, with her…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast, is art historian, Alyce Mahon discussing the great Surrealist, Dorothea Tanning. Born in Illinois in 1910, where she said “nothing happened but the wallpaper”, Tanning immersed herself in gothic literature to escape to other worlds. Travelling to Paris to hunt down the Surrealists, Tanning “entered” or “birthed” herself into art in 1942 with her self-portrait “Birthday”, which sees her bare-breasted and standing in front of slightly ajar doors that seemingly lead to nowhere. Settling in NYC, where she exhibited with Peggy Guggenheim, it was then to the wide-open landscape of Sedona Arizona, where she painted Caspar David Friedrich-like paintings of herself standing before nature – ”asserting the centrality of woman” (as Mahon wrote in her new book). She then returned to postwar France and, switching up her style, moved into a cloud-like and splintered abstractions, before turning to bodily-like soft-sculptures. Although she famously said, "don’t ask me to explain my paintings".…

TODAY on the GWA podcast: curator SONNET STANFILL on ELSA SCHIAPARELLI! Sonnet is the Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A, where she has worked since 1999. Stanfill has curated numerous highly acclaimed exhibitions, such as New York Fashion Now, Ballgowns: British Glamour since 1950, and the landmark The Glamour of Italian Fashion (2014), which traveled to several museums across the US. She has published and lectured widely on various aspects of fashion design and holds an MA in the history of dress. But the reason why we are speaking with her today is because she has just curated the monumental exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A, which charts the fearless life and daring work of the artist, designer, surrealist, influencer and general pioneer of who the modern woman was and what she could be. A creator of surrealist wonderlands with her fantastical gowns with floating eyes, lips, and lobsters, woven jackets embellished with astrological symbolism and mirrors inspired by…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: the esteemed scholar, author, and art historian DIANE APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA on MARY MAGDALENE! Professor Emerita of Religious Art & Cultural History and Haub Director of the Catholic Studies Program at Georgetown University, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Art History Program at The George Washington University, Apostolos-Cappadona has written extensively on art history. The author of Mary Magdalene: A Visual History (2023); A Guide to Christian Art (2020); Encyclopedia of Women in Religious Art (1996); Dictionary of Christian Art (1994); and The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century American Art (1995), and “In Search of Mary Magdalene: images and traditions” (2002)... Apostolos-Cappadona is one of the leading scholars in the world on religious art and, in particular, the image of Mary Magdalene. So - today - unlike in episodes where we deep-dive into a single artist, we will be taking an approach like we've…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: choreographer Meryl Tankard on her mentor and friend, the legendary dancer and choreographer: PINA BAUSCH (1940-2009). Artist, choreographer, visionary, and trailblazer in bringing dance into the modern world, Pina Bausch – one of the most popular names when it comes to artists' influences – was hailed for her raw, haunting, experimental dances, and all-encompassing productions. Born in 1940 in Germany in the midst of WW2, from an early age Pina took ballet and dance lessons. In the 1950s, a scholarship at Juilliard took her to NYC, a time of great artistic reinvention, and then back to Germany, where she founded Tanztheater Wuppertal and created her groundbreaking choreographies. While the group, at first, faced hostility, the crowd – and the world – soon realized her innovations. On the magic of dancing with Pina Bausch, Meryl told me: "Every time we moved it had an emotion behind it ... that's what really shocked everyone at the beginning, because dance had always hidden the…

I am so excited to say that my guests on the GWA Podcast are the esteemed scholar and curator, Katlijne Van der Stighelen, and Royal Acdemy senior curator, Julien Domercq! Part 1 – Katlijne Van der Stighelen Part 2 – Julien Domercq A professor at KU Leuven until 2024, who has published books on artist Anna Maria van Schurma, Katlijne is also a curator, having, in 1999, along with Mirjam Westen, curated the first ever exhibition on women artists in Belgium and the Netherlands. She is also the curator of Van Dyck l'Europeo: His Journey from Antwerp to Genoa and London', currently on view at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. But, the reason why we are speaking with Katlijne today is because she has, according to some news outlets, made the greatest artistic discovery of the 21st century - and no, we are not talking about Banksy. It was digging around in a museum basement just over 30 years ago that Katlijne stumbled upon the extraordinary work of Michaelina Wautier, then a totally obscure name not even known to 17th…

TODAY on the GWA PODCAST: esteemed curator DITA AMORY, discussing HELENE SCHJERFBECK! Currently the Robert Lehman Curator in Charge of the Robert Lehman Collection at The Met, Amory has curated numerous critically-acclaimed exhibitions, such as Pierre Bonnard: the Late Interiors, Madame Cézanne, Félix Vallotton, Vertigo of Color, and more. A graduate of art history at Trinity College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where she earned a master’s degree – Amory began her career as a librarian, before becoming Curator of Drawings, then Chief Curator at the National Academy of Design. She joined the Met in 1997 as Assistant Curator of the Robert Lehman Collection, taking charge of the department in 2007 as Acting Associate Curator in Charge, and later Curator in Charge. And WOW has she worked on the most incredible projects since…. including the reason why we are speaking to her today: the extraordinary, current exhibition: Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene…

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: the renowned art historian and writer, Nicholas Fox Weber discussing ANNI ALBERS! A graduate of Columbia College and Yale University, who received his PhD at the University of Groningen, Weber is a prolific and esteemed author of over a dozen books – including The Bauhaus Group, Le Cor­busier, Balthus A Biography, Patron Saints, The Art of Babar, and many more – as well as being the founder of a non-profit organisation that supports arts, education and medical care in Senegal… But! The reason why we are speaking to him today is because, for nearly 50 years, he has devoted himself to the lives and works of the pioneering 20th century German-born artists – who lived in the US for much of their adult life – Josef and Anni Albers. As the Executive Director of their foundation, Weber has written extensively on them, bringing their work to the fore, and championing and preserving their legacy. While Josef Albers is a trailblazing artist whose theories on colour, and teaching methods, have…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the author, academic, screenwriter, creator of fantastical worlds and nocturnal roof-climber, Katherine Rundell. An award-winning non-fiction author for adults and fiction writer for children – whose books have sold over 4million copies worldwide, Rundell has penned works that span from the Impossible Creatures series – set in magical, endangered Archipelago – to Rooftoppers, about a young girl called Sophie who climbs the roofs of Paris in search of her mother, which is, one of my favourites. Because another of Rundell’s great works is Why You Should Read Children’s Books Even Though You Are So Old and Wise, a small yet mighty book that argues for children’s fiction as integral to our reading output. A place which invites us not only to understand the fundamentals of good and evil, but reminds us of the importance of taking kids seriously, as Sophie, the protagonist in Rooftoppers, reminds us: “Do not underestimate children, do not underestimate…

Dame Tracey Emin is BACK on The GWA Podcast! Hailed for her paintings, videos, textiles, neons, writing, sculptures, installations, and now, her extraordinary work as an educator, raising the next generation of artists at TKE Studios in Margate, right by where we are recording today – Emin has been at the forefront of art for more than four decades. Born in Croydon, and raised in Margate with her twin brother Paul, Emin had a complex child- and teenagehood, which she details in her part-memoir, Strangeland – as well as in works such as Why I Never Became a Dancer or Mad Tracey From Margate. Officially leaving school aged 15, Emin went to Maidstone College of Art, and onto the Royal College – where she won over her interviewees with her impressive sketch book selection. In 1993, she kept a shop in Brick Lane, titled “The Shop”, which ended with a party on her 30th birthday, and that year had her first exhibition – at a then-new gallery called White Cube. On view were objects she had collected over the years –…

I am very excited to announce that I have written a new book, The Story of Art without Men: An illustrated guide to amazing women artists (out on 5 March!). It’s an adaptation of The Story of Art without Men for readers aged 8–14 (and above), brought to life with beautiful illustrations by Ping Zhu and artworks from the past 500 years. From the Renaissance to the present day, via Cornwall, Japan, Paris and New York City, this book features a whole host of artistic trailblazers, freedom fighters, and game changers. We look at Surrealism – a movement born out of the horrors of the First World War in Paris, where artists turned to their imaginations and away from the broken world around them for inspiration… LISTEN TO A TEASER HERE... as I take my reader through the magical worlds of Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Lee Miller, and more. Pre-order now: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-story-of-art-without-men/katy-hessel/9780241738191 Signed copy:…

Dear listeners, As we enter a new month of December, I wanted to share a teaser of the audiobook of my new book, How to Live an Artful Life. https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-live-an-artful-life/katy-hessel/9781529155204 Here is an extract from the month of December, featuring its introduction and the first five days. Each month is based around a theme. For example, January is about seeking out ideas, February is about love, and September focuses on time. December's is joy and features thoughts, reflections, creative exercises and daily routines from the likes of Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois, Yoko Ono, Judy Chicago, Faith Ringgold, and more. A time of celebration, light and beauty; a time to spend with family and take part in festivities; to relish in the delights that the gift of art can give, and to take stock in everything you’ve discovered, learnt, tried and tasted this year. As we embark on this month, before we start again in January, think of December – like art – as a gift that has been…

I am so excited to bring you this conversation with the extraordinary Es Devlin, who joined me at Liberty last week to celebrate the release of How to Live an Artful Life. Es Devlin is an artist and stage designer renowned all over the world for her large-scale performative sculptures and environments – from theatre and opera design for the National Gallery and Royal Opera House, to kinetic stage sculptures for musicians like Beyoncé, U2 and Lady Gaga. She has also created luminous installations at the V&A, Serpentine Galleries, Somerset House, and more. Whether designing for Beyoncé, the opera, or creating public artworks, Es Devlin’s works dissolve the boundaries between art, architecture and performance, and encourage us to rethink our position in the world. Expertly led by the wonderful Hannah Macinnes, we touched on all things to do with living an artful life – Es’s morning routine; how we can get better at focusing our attention on one thing; artmaking as an expression of love; the artist hustle – and…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed curator, author, and expert in photography, Madga Keany. Currently the Head Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Magda was most recently Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, and before that, Senior Curator, Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery London, where she lead the realisation of a major re-presentation of the Photographs Collection as part of the museum’s rehaul. Keany has curated shows and published texts on Australian art, design and social history, photography that ranges from the Victorian period to fashion, conflict and portraiture, solo presentations of portraits by Irving Penn, among many others. She has written for the groundbreaking Know My Name project, that put women artists in Australia on a global stage as well as for Cindy Sherman, A World History of Women Photographers, and more. …but it was her exhibition last year that really grabbed my attention: Francesca…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast today is the esteemed curator, Megan Fontanella. A specialist in Modern Art and Provenance at the Guggenheim New York, Fontanella’s research interests focus on late 19th and early 20th European art and the avant-garde in the USA. She has organised a plethora of exhibitions for the Guggenheim across the globe, from Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim (2017); Kandinsky (2020–21); Kandinsky: Around the Circle (2021–22; 2023–24); Young Picasso in Paris (2023), as well as travelling collection exhibitions in Australia, Canada, and Europe. But the reason why we are speaking to Fontanella today is because she is very excitingly curating a monumental exhibition by the German Expressionist, Gabriele Münter. Titled Contours of a World, the show – opening 7 November through to April 2026 – will feature 60 of the artist’s luminous, bold, sometimes rapidly-made paintings – from her portraits of friends to landscapes of the German alpine town of Murnau – that…

I'm so excited to say that today’s guest on the Great Women Artist Podcast is the esteemed curator, writer, broadcaster and cultural trailblazer, Ekow Eshun. Born in North-west London in 1968, Eshun has been at the forefront of creative culture for decades. Writing across subjects and presenting documentaries, Eshun has curated groundbreaking exhibitions. From the 2022 In the Black Fantastic, at the Hayward in London – to The Time Is Always Now, a study of the Black figure and its representation in contemporary art, that began at London’s National Portrait Gallery, and has since travelled across the US. The author of multiple books: in 2006, he published his memoir: “Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa” an exploration of identity and race, that sees Eshun travelling through Ghana in search of his roots. And in 2024, The Strangers, a stunning work of creative nonfiction that tells the story of five pioneering Black men set against a vivid backdrop of art, culture, and resistance.…

I'm so excited to say that my guest on the Great Women Artist Podcast is one of the world's most renowned photographers working today, Sally Mann. Hailed for her images of nature in the remote American south – full of deeply layered memories and rivers that become characters of their own – and intimate portrayals of her children Jesse, Emmett and Virginia, Sally Mann creates photographs full of beauty. Beauty being something that is tied up with ephemerality, that is alive, that is in motion, something that we have to catch. As she aptly wrote in her 2015 memoir, Hold Still, “there cannot be any real beauty without the indolic whiff of decay.” Mann's photographs are therefore both painterly and fleeting. They capture people on the cusp of something else, whether that be illness or an increasingly decaying body, but she also captures the land, connecting us to the ancient and the natural worlds. Using an eight by 10 bellows camera and 19th century photographic techniques, her black and white aesthetic - that…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most exciting young painters working today, Eva Helene Pade. Born in Denmark in 1997, and based in Paris – where we are recording today – Pade is known for her rich and emotionally-charged, large-scale canvases populated with figures that morph in and out of abstraction. Often set in a dreamworld that can feel akin to being lost in a dance or state of unconsciousness, with fiery blazes and dark intense shadows, Pade’s paintings exist in places beyond the realm of our world. They are full of ambiguity: as a viewer, you are unaware of whether they are in day or night, heaven or hell, if the figures are male or female, or set in an ancient world or contemporary life. Stylistically, Pade seems to borrow from a lineage of Northern European figurative artists, from Edvard Munch to Otto Dix, creating work akin surrealism or expressionism: artistic movements born out of a time of political tumult, yet exude freedom and liberation in their subject…

I am so excited to say that my guest, returning for his second interview on the GWA Podcast, is the esteemed American writer, critic, and curator, Hilton Als… A staff writer at The New Yorker for over 30 years, and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2017 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing, Als is the author of numerous books. He is a teaching professor at Berkeley, Last time Als came on the podcast, we discussed two significant artists for him, the photographer, Diane Arbus; and the painter of people, Alice Neel – the latter of whom he has curated exhibitions of, exploring her life in uptown Manhattan, and her various friendships with artists, writers, dancers, neighbours and social activists. 119 But today I meet Hilton on the occasion of a new exhibition he has curated: Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World at Michael Werner Gallery in London, which explores the extraordinary and complex life of Creole-British writer, Jean Rhys, born in Dominica in 1890 to plantation owners,…

It’s officially one month to go until the publication of How to Live an Artful Life, my new book that features a quote by an artist or writer for everyday of the year: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-live-an-artful-life/katy-hessel/9781529155204 To celebrate, I wanted to share a teaser of the audiobook with an extract from the month of October, featuring its introduction and the first six days, so you can get a feel for the book. Each month is based around a theme. For example, January is about seeking out ideas, February is about love, and September focuses on time. October’s is transformation and features thoughts, reflections, creative exercises and daily routines from the likes of Virginia Woolf, Barbara Hepworth, Rose Wylie, Joan Mitchell, Marina Abramović, Zanele Muholi, Cindy Sherman, to name a few…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA podcast is one of the most influential artists working in the world right now, TANIA BRUGUERA! Hailed for her installation and participatory performance works that blur the boundaries between art and reality, Bruguera has dedicated her life to making work that explores freedom of expression, immigration, totalitarianism, and human rights. She has brought attention to the strict control of Cuban authorities by confronting visitors at Tate Modern with performer police officers on horseback, to setting up an open debate on an official-looking stage at the Havana Biennale to give people license to say what they want for one minute… Her work – often set in the framework of the theatre – has continued to push art to its limits and grant space for important and difficult conversations to take place. As she has said: “In a way, when you talk about politics, there is a lot of theatre involved. And what I’m trying to do with my art is how can we break the classic theatre…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed curator Kelli Cole to discuss the trailblazing Australian artist, Emily Kam Kngwarray! This is a very special BONUS episode and [as a one-off format] an exhibition walkthrough of Kngwarray's show at TATE MODERN. This is the first large-scale presentation of Kngwarray’s work ever held in Europe and a celebration of her extraordinary career as one of Australia’s greatest artists. Born in 1914, from the Alhalker Country in the Northern Territory, Kngwarray made thousands of works, reflecting her life as an Anmatyerr woman, but was – extraordinarily – only in her late 70s when she began painting in earnest, creating for ceremonial purposes and designs on the bodies of women. Listen to us explore the exhibition: witnessing first hand some of the most dazzling paintings I’ve ever seen. So whether you’ll listen to this ahead of your visit, or be virtually transported here (for those who can’t be here in person), I hope we can bring the magic of…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA podcast is the renowned psychologist Lisa Wenger, who is also – very excitingly – the niece of the artist we are going to be discussing today: Meret Oppeheim! Having collected and copied thousands of letters, notes, and documents from acquaintances of the German-Swiss artist – famed for her paintings, sculptures, collages, and more, who was commonly associated with the Surrealists – Wenger is something of a world expert on her aunt. The author and co-author of numerous books, including the award-winning “do not wrap words in poisonous letters” as well as “Meret Oppenheim - My Album” - Wenger is also responsible for updating the catalogue raisonne of her aunt, and co-running the estate, which has of late seen Oppenheim have major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Bern, and others that has put the trailblazing artist firmly in the spotlight. Born in 1913 in Berlin, at the inception of the first world war, Oppenheim was raised with her…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed American painter, Lois Dodd. At 98-years-old, Dodd is famed for her paintings of her immediate surroundings, from landscapes to house roofs, windows and stairs. She paints the Night, day; outside, inside; doors that are painted, chipped; new, worn; and loved. While there is a seemingly absence of people, Dodd’s paintings capture whole worlds and narratives – whether it be hose fires, or laundry hanging from a washing line. It’s as though the colour, weather, light, frames, stairs, or cracks retain years worth of stories and memories, or are even characters in themselves. Steeped in American art and cultural history, referencing the likes of Hopper or Hitchcock, Dodd’s works emphasise a voyeuristic, but also familiar nature. Born in 1927, Dodd was born and raised in New Jersey, mostly by her three older sisters after her parents’ untimely death when she was young. It was then to Cooper Union in the 1940s, where she was amongst the…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed American artist, Lorna Simpson. Working across photography to painting, video to collage, Simpson is a multimedia artist who – since the 1980s – has gained widespread acclaim for her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. Whether it’s fusing text with image, obscuring her subject’s identity, using techniques such as repetition, collage or manipulation – Simpson has conjured a plethora of ways to reinvent the image, and, by doing so, raises questions about gender, race, memory, and history. Her work, mostly centred on the female body, is full of seemingly open-ended narratives – as she has said: “I think the idea of identity or persona is interesting to me in that it is malleable and fluid. And that has always been part of the work in terms of [thinking about] who gets to determine who we are. Do we get to determine that, and what are the parameters of that, given the society that we live in?” Engaging with found images and…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most exciting painters working in the world today, Michaela Yearwood-Dan. Hailed for her works that bloom, dance, and come alive when you are witness to them, with an abundance of textures, weathers, colours, mark-makings, and more, Yearwood-Dan intertwines the botanical with abstraction, and brings painting back to its natural-like essence. Never restricting herself to just one medium, Yearwood-Dan works across ceramics, sound, installation, performance, and all-encompassing paintings that can range from small to the colossal, with some measuring up to 8-metres-wide. See them in the flesh and it’s like seeing an entire ecosystem unfold, embedded with hidden languages, whether it be the symbolism she uses or the small elements of text, poetry and song lyrics, that add another dimension to her rich, embellished worlds. Raised in London as the youngest of three girls, by parents and grandparents that taught her about craft, weaving,…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most anticipated and exciting painters working today – Danielle McKinney. Born in Alabama, and based in New Jersey, McKinney is hailed for her small, contemplative, introspective and intimate paintings of women. Caught in moments of rest, relaxation and repose, McKinney’s works, to my mind, are a collective portrait of the joys of female solitude. Painted on a black-coloured canvas emphasising the twilight time in which they appear to be set, McKinney’s seductive and alluring paintings situate the figure swept up in their own world. Although she uses only a few thick, washy strokes of paint, each has significance, whether it be to evoke a dress, a hint of a cigarette flame, or a glow of light under a low-lit lamp in their soft-focus interiors. Never fussy or over-painted, they show just how much something so simple like a woman in her private space can be so powerful. While we aren’t told much about them, it’s up to us as the viewers to…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the world renowned artist, Bharti Kher. Known for a seemingly limitless practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, found objects, and more; that explores hybrid beings – fusing animals and humans, objects and nature – Kher’s extraordinary art-making looks at and exists both in the real world and imaginary. She is astute at seeing the potential in something, whether it be the magical superpowers of the human body or extent to which she can push materials into something they’re not, transforming them into something full of wonder. From using bindis like tiny paint strokes, melted down bangles to form a tower of bricks, animal heads and or plant-like forms that transform a human from something real to into something mythical – looking at a Kher work is to see alchemy play out in a solid object. Born in England to Indian parents in 1969, Kher studied at Newcastle Polytechnic, before venturing to India, where she has lived since 1993. Settling…

I am so excited to say that my guest, the esteemed art historian, Andrew Hottle, will be discussing SYLVIA SLEIGH! Currently the Professor of Art History at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, Hottle has dedicated his research and writing to focussing on women artists, with specialization in feminist art of the 1970s. He is the author of a definitive monograph on the American realist painter Shirley Gorelick, and his detailed book about The Sister Chapel reignited interest in a historic collaboration by thirteen women artists. But he is also a world expert on one of those artists featured in this chapel: Sylvia Sleigh, who was born in Wales and died in 2010, having been based in New York City for most of her life, and known for her unique realist painting style immortalising those in her community and the culturally significant. Identifiably recognisable by their meticulously rendered details, body hair and tan lines, Sleigh’s paintings were always created from her acutely feminist viewpoint. Painting…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the brilliant New York based painter, Katherine Bradford. Hailed for her luminous paintings of swimming pools and cosmic skies, ballet dancers and bicycle riders, Bradford takes us to imaginary worlds full of freedom, togetherness and wonder. Not usually specifying the figures in her work, instead she offers us a universal depiction of humanity – that any of us can apply ourselves or relate to – playing with scale and perspective, and getting us to think hard about our place on this earth. Born in 1942, and raised in Connecticut, Bradford didn’t always start off as an artist. A woman of stifling 1960s America, she was married with twins in her 20s, but aged 37, swapped this life, bringing her kids along, to become an artist in New York City, and never looked back. Making her way by teaching from the 1980s to the 2010s, becoming the senior critic on the faculty of Yale School of Art and being awarded Pollock Krasner grants and Guggenheim Fellowships,…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the acclaimed painter, Rose Wylie! Born in 1934, as the youngest of seven children to Victorian parents, Wylie spent her early childhood in India before coming to England aged 5. This was in 1939, in the midst of a bomb-filled Second World War and increasingly fractured world. She went on to study figurative painting, at Folkestone and Dover College of Art in Kent from 1952–56, at a time when tutors would say to her ‘It’s no good bothering with you, you’re a girl, you’ll get married, have children and that’ll be that.’ … It was then to a teacher training programme at Goldsmiths before putting art aside to raise three children. This was, until 1979 when Wylie returned to the studio enrolling at the Royal College of Art, in her early 40s. Her first solo exhibition came a few years later in 1985, but despite Wylie working in her cottage-slash-studio in Kent for the last 50+ years – where we are very excitingly recording today – it was not until the last…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most renowned painters working in the world right now: Jenny Saville. Hailed for her at times colossal paintings of the human form – from close ups of the face, to examinations of exposed flesh – Saville is fascinated with the complex vessels that we all live inside. Theatrical and grotesque, beautiful and painful, her presentations of the body can feel almost like a landscape, pressed up against the surface of the canvas, in her masterful handling of paint that ranges from wet, to dry, oily to thin, thick and with shards and smears of colour. At once uneasy, raw, tense, and animal-like, Saville’s portrayals of the body show how it transforms, grows, decays, and breathes… While full of contradictions, there is always a beauty, from the colours Saville uses to the golden light and textures that accentuate a knee, or finger. Born in Cambridge in 1970, as one of four siblings, Saville studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the 80s and 90s,…

Welcome to the FINALE of Season 12! I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the acclaimed writer, Sheila Heti. Born in 1976 in Toronto, where she lives today, Heti is the author of eleven books, from novels to novellas, short stories and children’s books. Most recently, her acclaimed books have included Alphabetical Diaries, that ordered a decade worth of diaries in alphabetical order; Pure Colour (2022), a novel that explores grief, art and time; Motherhood (2018), a meditation on whether or not to become a mother in a society that judges you whatever the outcome. Heti’s writing is some of the most honest, thoughtful I’ve ever read, and throughout weaves in the broad subject of art, whether it be paintings or her protagonists’ professions… Heti also wrote for the literary journal the Believer, and has conducted many long-form print interviews with writers and artists, including conversations with Joan Didion, Elena Ferrante, Agnes Varda, Sophie Calle, who are among some of the artists we…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast today is the renowned British artist, Barbara Walker. Born in Birmingham, where she lives and works today, Walker is hailed for her intimate paintings of everyday life, and intricate drawings that not only show power dynamics in Old Master Paintings, but give voice to histories that are all too often erased. From works on paper to paintings on canvas, and large-scale charcoal wall drawings, Walker’s work, no matter their scale, is full of empathy, depth, and emotion. Some tell us stories about the state of affairs in Britain, whereas others are much more personal – in the early 2000s, she made her son the subject of her work – which get to the heart of the brokenness in our society, and look at situations from both an artistic and motherly gaze. Research is at the heart of Walker’s work, and she frequently goes into public archives, such as for her incredible series, Shock and Awe, which highlighted the contribution of Caribbean servicemen and women…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the world’s most renowned artists, Shahzia Sikander. Working across painting, sculpture, drawing, and animation, the Lahore-born, New York-based Sikander is widely celebrated for her work that subverts tradition and reclaims narratives – such as her subverting of Central and South-Asian manuscript painting and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. A holder of a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, it was Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, that received national critical acclaim in Pakistan and brought international recognition to the medium in contemporary art practices in the 1990s. Life then took her to the US, where she received, in 1995, her M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design. Over the subsequent twenty plus years, Sikander’s practice – which has expanded into multiple mediums – has been pivotal in showcasing art of the South Asian diaspora as a contemporary American…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the renowned German painter, Katharina Grosse. Hailed for her site-specific paintings which she spray-paints onto rocks, walls, landscapes and architecture, Grosse’s works explode with luminous colour. Working both indoor and outdoor, she upends all traditions when it comes to painting: dissolving framing devices, vantage points, or a clear indication of where a work begins and ends. Witness one of her all-engulfing work in person, and your perspective constantly shifts: from afar they feel like giant swathes of colour, but up close, details of the paint reveal themselves. Grosse is architect, sculptor and painter all at once. In her words, she aims to ‘reset’ what painting is and can be. But while she employs the artforms in the most imaginative and inventive ways, she also gets us to think about their histories and traditions – for example, how we could compare her work to an all-encompassing painted renaissance chapel in Florence, something that…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most trailblazing artists and poets in the world right now, Cecilia Vicuna. Born in 1948 in Chile, and based between Santiago and New York, Vicuna is hailed for her works that are as ephemeral as they are permanent, colossal as they are minute, fragile as they are strong, that bring together sound, weaving, language, and community. Educated in Santiago in the 1960s, life took Vicuna to London to study at the Slade School of Art on a scholarship in the 1970s, but because of the Pinochet regime that began in 1973, she was forced to live in exile. Soon she went to Bogota, Colombia, before moving to New York City, where she has remained ever since, in the same loft and tending to the same community garden. Since Vicuna was a teen, she has focussed on a political orientation for her art, as she has said, because she “understood that the life of this planet was endangered”. Through artforms she calls “arte precario” – precarious art – because it…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is Maria Balshaw. Currently serving as Director of Tate, a position she has held since 2017, Balshaw began her career as an academic and lecturer in cultural studies. At the dawn of the 2000s, she swapped this to become Director of Creative Partnerships, a government programme that aimed to develop creativity in young people by bringing schools and artists together, which was sadly cut after the Labour Government was replaced by the coalition. In 2006, she became the director of the Whitworth Art Gallery, and in 2011, took on the additional role of director of Manchester City Galleries, and, to cement her reign in Manchester, she was made Director of culture, while also earning herself a CBE. But it’s been under her premiership at Tate – as the historic institution’s first ever female director – where we’ve seen some of the most groundbreaking shows take place in recent years. From Women in Revolt, that explored the trailblazing work of feminist…

Remembering the great Audrey Flack (1931–2024). Earlier this year, I interviewed Flack over a series of interviews before she passed away on 28 June 2024. Audrey was a force, and I hope you enjoy listening to her powerful and moving words. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend her memoir: With Darkness Came Stars: A Memoir (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09674-2.html) -- I couldn’t be more excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed American artist, sculptor, photo-realist painter, and native New Yorker, Audrey Flack. Hailed for her sculptures of divine goddesses and Biblical characters; her paintings evocative of Old Masters that explore the historic subjects but with pop imagery; and abstract canvases, made in the 1940s and 50s, filled with swathes of movement, colour, and vigour – Audrey Flack, has been at the forefront of the art world. Brought up in New York City, Flack studied at Cooper Union and then Yale, where she was one of the only women and was taught…

This is a (Halloween special!) bonus episode that explores the image of Witches in Art, as told by Professor Lyndal Roper! What is a witch? Where does it stem from? Why is she so often an old woman, who is harmful and evil? How did this perpetuate the way women were treated in history? What is a witch today? Roper, a regius professor of History at the University Oxford, is one of the global experts on the history of witchcraft. She is the author of: Witch Craze, that examines in-depth the trials of women accused of witchcraft, and argued that the craze sprang from a collective fantasy, of which many were older, infertile women who were accused of harming infants and destroying fertility in the natural and human world: https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300119831/ The Witch in the Western Imagination, which looks at the many different visualisations of witches, which in Germany found its “fullest exploration” thanks to the invention in the late 15th century, which in a way, changed the distribution of art…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the writer, critic, and author, Merve Emre. Currently the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University – and the Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism – Emre is also the acclaimed and award-winning author of numerous books. These include Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America; The Personality Brokers (selected as one of the best books of 2018 by the New York Times, and others); The Ferrante Letters (winner of the 2021 PROSE award for literature). A holder of prizes in Literary Criticism, Emre is also a contributing writer to The New Yorker, where she has written extensively on art and literature, from Leonora Carrington to Susan Sontag. But! The reason why we are speaking to Emre today is because she is also an ardent expert on Virginia Woolf and the wider Bloomsbury Group, having authored the stunningly beautiful – and informative – The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway,…

I am so excited to say that my guest on today’s podcast is the esteemed curator and writer, Emerson Bowyer. Currently the Searle Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago, Emerson is a specialist in 18th- and 19th-century French and British art. He has worked at New York’s Frick Collection, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where his highly-acclaimed curated exhibitions have spanned the spectrum of sculpture, such as 19th century artist Canova to, more recently, the artist we are very excitingly discussing today, the trailblazing, Camille Claudel. …which was staged at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Getty in LA, as the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist in the US for 35 years. https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/claudel/index.html https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9714/camille-claudel Born in France in 1864, Claudel has been hailed for her meticulously rendered and intensely passionate works of…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most groundbreaking and era-defining artists around today, Nadya Tolokonnikova. A founding member of Pussy Riot, the feminist art-collective and performance group, active since 2011, Nadya is an artist, activist, and musician, who has dedicated her life to fighting for freedom, confronting the dangers of the far-right and Putin with his distorted power. Born in 1989 in the industrial city of Norilsk, Russia, Nadya moved to Moscow aged 17, where she studied philosophy. “Since childhood” as she has said, “I’ve loved finding myself in extreme situations. I’ve always lacked unusual things in my life”. In Moscow, she immediately got involved with the radical activist-art collective, Voina – which translates to ‘war’ in Russian – who hit back at far-right Russian politicians with their mocking commentary performances. And from 2011, she joined Pussy Riot, with whom she performs highly outspoken and daring guerrilla gigs in public in opposition…

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is Sophia Jansson – niece of Tove Jansson, the legendary Swedish-speaking Finnish writer, artist, novelist, illustrator, and children’s book author, best known for creating the Moomins. Born in Helsinki in 1914, Tove grew up immersed in art from a young age. It was thanks to her artist parents, who raised her and her brothers in a home filled with plaster dust, clay, paintings, and floor-to-ceiling books – known to be (quote) “a box with endless secret compartments…” It was even thought she slept on the shelf at one point! But, growing up in the 1910s and 30s, it was also a time wracked by war. Turning to art, Tove made paintings – in a style influenced by the post-Impressionists – and conceived of imaginary worlds, steeped in nature – from forests to the sea – perhaps to escape the imploding world around her. Jansson’s books for children and her novels for adults are just as much great stories as they are philosophies on life as she wrote: “before the…

To celebrate the paperback release of The Story of Art Without Men, Katy Hessel reads an excerpt of her chapter on ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM. Out this Thursday! Get your copy now: BOOK: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-story-of-art-without-men/katy-hessel/9781529156096 AUDIO BOOK: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Story-of-Art-Without-Men-Audiobook/B09P1RK3GV