Athena Art Foundation

In this episode, Jonquil O'Reilly talks to Elizabeth Cleland and Adam Eaker, the curators of "Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about their exhibition and transporting the viewer back to the 16th century through tapestries, embroideries, goldwork and portraits full of enigmatic symbols.

This episode of Athena Asks focuses on race, representation and colonialism in 19th-century Victorian sculpture. It is hosted by Dr Adrienne Childs, co-curator of the new exhibition The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sexuality and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture, now showing at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, UK (also co-curated by the Director of Athena Art Foundation, Nicola Jennings). Childs talks with two brilliant guests, Dr Caitlin Beach (Assistant Professor of Art History at Fordham University) and Dr Mia L. Bagneris (Associate Professor in African Diaspora Art and Studies of Race in Western Art at Tulane University), about race, representation, colonialism and the legacy of slavery in 19th-century Victorian sculpture.

In this episode of Athena Asks, host Dr Madeleine Haddon talks to Elyse Nelson (Assistant Curator in European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Met in New York) about the current show Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, co-curated by Nelson and Wendy S. Walters.

Organised around a single object, the marble bust Why Born Enslaved! by 19th-century French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, this is the first exhibition at The Met to explore Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and empire.

The thematic labels were written by:


What is abolition? Farah Peterson

What is representation? Fabienne Kanor

Who narrates history? Lisa Farrington

What is the legacy of the Black figure in Western art? Elizabeth Colomba

Lavinia was born in 1552 in Bologna and went on to be the first professional woman artist in Western Europe. In this episode of Athena Asks, Jonquil O'Reilly talks to Dr Aoife Brady (Curator of Italian and Spanish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland) about an upcoming exhibition devoted to Lavinia's remarkable art and career. Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rulebreaker will open at the Gallery in May 2023.

Jonquil O'Reilly, fashion historian and Old Master specialist at Christies, talks to Dr Rosalind McKever, Curator of Paintings and Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  They discuss "Fashioning Masculinities, the Art of Menswear", now on at the V&A,  which celebrates the artistry and diversity of contemporary and historical male fashion,  with displays including a black velvet tuxedo dress worn by Billy Porter at the Oscars,  a sequinned outfit worn by Timothy Chalamet, and classical sculptures which have shaped notions of the ideal male body,

Alayo Akinkugbe, the Nigerian art historian and figure behind @blackhistoryofart, interviews Dr Constantine Petridis, Curator of African Art and Chair of the Department of Arts of Africa and the America at the Art Institute of Chicago. They focus on his new exhibition  The Language of Beauty in African Art, which challenges  Western framing of this art through the lens of modernist Primitivism, presenting it instead through ideas about beauty indigenous to the African communities which have produced it.  They also discuss the exhibition in terms of current debates about restitution. 

In this episode, Director of Athena Art Foundation Nicola Jennings talks to Madeleine Haddon about "Nuestra Casa", the exhibition she has curated at New York's Hispanic Society Museum which highlights the interdependence of Spanish and Latin American art, and the hidden, sometimes dark histories of some of the collection's most beautiful objects.

Glenn Brown CBE is a British artist who takes the art of previous centuries as the starting point for his own works which feature unsettling images in vibrant colours, with thin, swirling brushstrokes in place of the thick impastos used by masters such as Rembrandt and Ribera. Nicola asks him about his approach as well as about his interest in frames, the enigmatic titles of his paintings, his sculptures made of oil paint, and the Baroque in relation to his concerns about the natural world.

In preserving our pasts for the benefit of future generations, museums have always been forward looking. But what does the future, and the future of museums, look like? In this episode of What Are Museums For?, Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson and Athena Art Foundation Director Nicola Jennings are joined by Professor Rebecca Kilner and Esme Ward, to explore museums’ relationship to the environment, nature and science. What role have the arts historically played in shaping our ideas about the environment? How do museums help to bring scientific knowledge into the public sphere? How can museums promote sustainable values and become more sustainable themselves whilst nurturing a global audience?

In fifteenth-century Italy, men like Lionello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, were peacocks, strutting their stuff in scintillating brocades, armour, and jewels to attract attention both to physical beauty and to political power. In this podcast, Jonquil O'Reilly, fashion historian and Old Master specialist at Christies, talks to Timothy McCall, Associate Professor of Art History at Villanova University. In a fascinating discussion about Tim's new book, Brilliant Bodies, they present us with a totally new perspective on male fashion in Quattrocento Italy, arguing that in this culture, elaborate costume not only supported but signified authority.