In episode 37 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the world-renowned art historian Bridget R Cooks on the SENSATIONAL and PIONEERING Abstract artist, ALMA THOMAS (1891–1978) !!!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

And WOW. This is one of the most incredible and UPLIFTING life stories I have heard of an artist whose work I am completely in love with – partially for the reason that Alma Thomas did not become an artist until she was in her 70s!!!

A schoolteacher from 1924–1960 (!), it wasn't until after retirement that Alma Thomas took up painting professionally. Enrolling in University as a senior, she quickly shot to fame and was the first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney in 1972. She was a groundbreaker. 

Known for her electric-like canvases, Alma Thomas transposed the way she saw the world onto the canvas through her shards of shimmering colour that represented flowers, music, science, to the first man landing on the moon and the invention of colour television. Some more muted than others, colour was Alma Thomas's lifeline: “A world without colour would seem dead. Colour, for me, is life”

In this episode – one of my favourites EVER, as told by Bridget so eloquently – we discuss Alma Thomas's life in great detail – including a VERY sweet and personal story from Bridget; what made her choose to be an educator for nearly five decades; her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement despite not 'directly' addressing these issues in her work; her relevance today; looking at museums' role in promoting Black artists; and of course, Alma's global fame when none other than MICHELLE OBAMA acquired her work as the first Black woman artist in the White House Collection in 2015.

This is a really beautiful, uplifting SUNNY episode. And I hope you enjoy it.

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE!

Iris, Tulips, Jonquils, Crocuses (1969)

Arboretum Presents White Dogwood (1972)

March on Washington (1963–4)

Wind, Sunshine, and Flowers (1968)

Blast Off (1970)

Launch Pad (1970)

Cherry Blossom Symphony (1973)

Pond Spring Awakening (1972)

Resurrection (White House – 1966)

FURTHER READING: 

https://nmwa.org/art/artists/alma-woodsey-thomas/

https://studiomuseum.org/exhibition/alma-thomas

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/resurrection-by-alma-thomas

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 36 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the sensational artist, LOIE HOLLOWELL!!!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

And WOW was it fascinating to hear all about the ideas behind Loie's MIND-BLOWING, electric-like paintings that abstract the body through fragments of geometric shapes.

Always using a vibrant colour palette, her PULSATING and PSYCHEDELIC works explore themes around sexuality, birth, women's bodies, which we discuss in-depth!

First appearing as highly textured two dimensional works, witness them in real life and her works evolve from flat geometric masterpieces into an almost sculptural sphere that at once give the illusion of expanding and contracting, merging and converging.

Having only just given birth for the second time a matter of months ago – during a pandemic! – Loie created an incredible body of work titled "Going Soft" in reaction to this, which didn't just depict how the body changed, but how the mind absorbed everything happening...

Having grown up in Northern California in the 80s and 90s and now based in Queens, New York, Loie still bases much of her work on her upbringing in the expansive West Coast land, as well as citing from her influencers Agnes Pelton and Georgia O'Keeffe.

Through her works, Loie is reimagining the way we don’t just see, but experience women’s bodies in painting, and I hope you enjoy our discussion around this!!

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE!

Beacon (2018)

A Gentle Meeting of the Tips (2018)

Post Partum (2018)

Birthing Dance (2018)

Deep Tear (2020)

Perspective from Above and Below (23 April 2020)

Descent into Chaos (1 June 2020)

Further reading: 

https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/loie-hollowell/

https://www.pacegallery.com/online-exhibitions/loie-hollowell/

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 35 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the world-renowned art historian and biographer, Natalie Lettner, on the FASCINATING and BRILLIANT Austrian-born artist, MARIA LASSNIG (1919–2014) !!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

And WOW. This is one of the most interesting life stories I have ever heard of an artist whose work I am COMPLETELY blown away by. Known for her psychologically charged figurative paintings, Lassnig's work is based on the extreme observation of the physical presence of the body – what she termed ‘body awareness’. 

Born in 1919, in a small town in southern Austria, Maria's mother gave birth to her out of wedlock and later married a much older man, but their troubled and tempestuous relationship meant Lassnig was raised by her grandmother, who hardly spoke to her since she was six.

Studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the midst of the Second World War, where she was only exposed to classical and academic art, Lassnig quickly moved away from the state-approved academic realism and travelled around Europe in search of the avant-garde. 

After experimenting with surrealism, abstraction, expressionism and constantly being treated lesser than her male counterparts, at age nearly 50 Lassnig moved on to NYC to join forces with the feminist movement. And it was here where her work turned to external realism and painted portraits, nudes and still lifes, at times combining these with her ‘body awareness’ self-portraits.

Recording her psychological states through a direct and unflinching style, her work used garish greens, yellows and blues to giver her paintings a POWERFUL and DRASTIC impact. 

Maria Lassnig painted like NO OTHER in the history of art. With such conviction, force, and lack of embarrassment. She was not afraid to reveal anything. 

This is one of the most fascinating stories of an artist I have ever SEEN. An artist who almost predicted the influence of technology through her paintings (in the 80s she became obsessed with the machine, and addicted to television!!). 

Please listen to this sensation of an episode with the brilliant Natalie who tells her story so well. Only to be recognised with a major exhibition at the age of 89 at the Serpentine Galleries. 

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE!

You, or Me (2005)

Expressive Self Portrait (1945)

Beams (1950)

Head (1956)

Self Portrait as a Monster (2005)

Self Portrait with Stick (1971)

Chain of Tradition

My Teddy is more real than me (2002)

Hospital (2005)

Further reading: 

https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/2795-maria-lassnig

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/exhibition/maria-lassnig

Natalie's brilliant book!

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Maria-Lassnig-Natalie-Lettner-Brandst%C3%A4tter-Verlag/22323627600/bd

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 34 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews one of the most exciting and brilliant young painters working in the world right now, the great SOMAYA CRITCHLOW!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

A graduate of Brighton University and The Royal Drawing School, Somaya is known for her powerful depictions of bold female characters and delicately rendered objects – that she creates on both a mid-size and minute scale!

Challenging and subverting cultural expectations of race, gender, and power in the history of art, Somaya’s sometimes icon-like work adopts historical and classical motifs from the likes of Rubens to Velazquez.

Although rooted in historical imagery, her works fuse traditional painting with the modern day, referencing film to hip hop, which she explores in depth through commenting on the cultural, class and political dynamics of contemporary society.

In this episode we discuss painting the female nude, and challenging past perceptions and institutional norms; Somaya's interest in the work of feminist writer Angela Carter; subverting cultural expectations and what feminism means today; her early interest in objects and museums; film and television; as well as an in-depth exploration into her current INCREDIBLE solo exhibition, "Underneath a Bepop Moon" at Maximillian William (on view until 15 August!).

ENJOY!!!!

Further reading as discussed!!  

https://maximillianwilliam.com/underneath-a-bebop-moon/

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/typescript-draft-of-the-sadeian-woman-by-angela-carter

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/02/unmastered-desire-katherine-angel-review

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 33 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews one of the most groundbreaking, important, and influential artists working in the world today, the Turner-Prize winning artist, LUBAINA HIMID!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

Known for working in painting, drawing, collage, printmaking, cut-outs, and installations, Himid paints onto a variety of surfaces from ceramic to wood which produce objects with performative potential intended to be encountered in a space. 

A tireless champion of marginalised voices, Himid has dedicated her thirty-year-plus career to uncovering silenced histories, to valorise ‘the contribution Black people have made to cultural life in Europe for the past several hundred years’.

Born in Zanzibar in 1954, Himid moved to Britain with her mother when she was just four months old. She studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Art, and later Royal College of Art.

In the 1980s, Lubaina became one of the LEADERS and TRAILBLAZERS of Britain’s Black Arts movement, curating three shows – which we disucss in depth.

Living and work in Preston, she is a CBE, a Royal Academician, the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize, and a professor at the University of Central Lancashire; in the collection of the Tate, V&A, Whitworth, Walker Art Gallery, plus more; and has had solo exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, Tate St Ives, Chisenhale, and it has just been announced that Lubaina will have a major solo exhibition at Tate Modern in November 2021. 

This is really one of the greatest conversations I have EVER had. I am completely in awe at Lubaina and her BRILLIANT work that remains more present than ever. I really hope you enjoy this episode.

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 32 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the phenomenal, Brooklyn-based artist, JULIE CURTISS!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

One of the MOST exciting artists working today, Julie is known for her bold, graphic, highly stylised and Neo-Surrealist works of faceless and fragmented women, and food. Often swept up in an eerily dreamscape, her often cropped works allow us as viewers to interpret a world beyond what we are looking at. 

Working in a myriad of mediums including painting, sculpture, and gouache on paper, Julie focuses on the relationship between nature and culture, as well as exposing and reworking female archetypes through motifs of flowing hair, long nails, and high heels. 

Speaking about her work she has said: "In my images, I enjoy the complementarity of humour and darkness, the uncanny and the mundane, grotesque shapes and vivid colours."

Born and raised in Paris, Curtiss studied at l'Ėcole des Beaux-Arts before moving first to Japan and then to New York. She is known for referencing 18th and 19th century French painting, as well as fusing together the pop-like imagery the Chicago Imagists, reminiscent of comic books and advertising. 

But in a similar manner to the Post-Impressionist painters, she mines her subjects from contemporary, everyday life, representing and exposing its curious, small details in cropped and ambiguous compositions that are erotically charged, cinematic and dreamlike in feel. 

I LOVED this HIGHLY fascinating conversation with Julie. In this episode we speak about her INCREDIBLE paintings, as well as her introduction to art through posters, her upbringing in France vs life in America, advertising, Jeff Koons, obsession with technologies entering our life, darkness in cinema, FOOD, the post-war era of the housewife, the constant upkeep of appearances for women, and MANY MORE!!

Further reading:

https://whitecube.com/artists/artist/julie_curtiss

https://antonkerngallery.com/artists/julie_curtiss

ENJOY!!

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

Lateral Embrace 

Orlando 

Double Selfie MoMA

Guests

Further reading: 

http://www.houldsworth.co.uk/exhibition-thumbnails/little-is-enough-for-those-in-love-1579801608/1

https://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/cassi-namoda

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 31 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews one of the most exciting artists in the world right now, the great CASSI NAMODA!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

WOW was it incredible to speak with the painter known for her vibrant and beautiful works that capture everyday scenes – from mundane moments to life-changing events of post-colonial Mozambique within an increasingly globalised world.

Born in Maputo, and currently based in Long Island, NY, Cassi is a painter and performance artist who explores the intricacies of social dynamics and mixed cultural and racial identity.

With the appearance of film stills, these fleeting snapshots sit within much larger narratives, and range from bustling, faceless crowds to close-up individual portraits.

When confronted with one, they fill you with JOY with their vibrant colours and scenes full of love and appreciation, with the artist once remarking, “If you’re surrounded by love and community, you can make do with very little."

I LOVED speaking with Cassi. In this episode we discuss her most recent exhibition "Little Is Enough For Those in Love" at Pippy Houldsworth in London – a show bursting with vitality, as well as exploring dualities between joy and pain; the storytelling aspect of her work and its cinematic influence; her experience growing up across continents and her aim to portray a post-independence Mozambique.

ENJOY!!

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

3 Month Old Lung Patient, 2019

Untitled (Conjoined Twins), 2019

Sad Man with Flowers, 2019

Little Is Enough For Those in Love, 2019

Costa Do Sol on Sunday Evening, 2019

Further reading: 

http://www.houldsworth.co.uk/exhibition-thumbnails/little-is-enough-for-those-in-love-1579801608/1

https://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/cassi-namoda

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 30 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the incredible art historian and curator, Professor Briony Fer, on the legendary EVA HESSE!!

[This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!]

One of the most GROUNDBREAKING artists the world has ever seen, Eva Hesse was known for her innovative sculptures made up of synthetic materials from fibreglass, plastic, to latex. 

Working predominantly in NYC in the 60s, despite a short-lived career, Eva worked rigorously and prolifically, challenging every sculptural convention which came before her. Particularly deconstructing the rigidity and uniformity of Minimalism. 

A pioneering feminist artist, Hesse desired, in her own words, to “challenge the norms of beauty and order.” And that's exactly what she did. She explored the body and form, and painting and sculpture, like no one had before. She painted biomorphs with wonky grids, covered cheesecloths in latex, and celebrated materials for what they were in all their irregular glory. 

Born to Jewish parents in Nazi Germany in 1936, Hesse's early life was traumatic. Where her extended family were horrifically transported to concentration camps, she, her sister and their parents fled to NYC, with her mother sadly committing suicide just a few years later. Hesse channelled her anxieties into her art making, studying under the likes of Josef Albers at Yale, and taking the NY art scene by storm when she was just in her late 20s and early 30s. Earning herself major solo exhibitions and critical acclaim at a time when female artists were widely overlooked, Hesse explored wonders before her premature death in 1970, aged just 34. She has since gone on to influence millions.

This discussion with world-renowned art historian Briony Fer – an old tutor of mine from UCL!! – is one of my favourites ever. Briony speaks SO wonderfully about Eva and really goes into depth about who she was, and her fiercely experimental practice.

I hope you enjoy!!!

Highly recommend this fantastic documentary on Eva! https://www.evahessedoc.com/

WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

Accession

https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/accession-ii-47951

Schema 

https://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/72573.html?mulR=601651032

Drawings

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hesse-untitled-t04154

Ringaround Arosie

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/98638

Vertiginous Detour

https://hirshhorn.tumblr.com/post/141099084095/eva-hesse-vertiginous-detour-1966-hesse-was-a

Untitled or Not Yet

https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/97-513-a-i/

Hang Up

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/71396/hang-up

Right After

https://womennart.com/2018/02/21/right-after-by-eva-hesse/

Repetition 19

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/eva-hesse-repetition-nineteen-iii-1968/

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 29 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews THREE brilliant guests: African Art specialist, Helene Love-Allotey, art historian and curator-in-training Chloe Austin, and creator of @arthistorytalks, Emi Eleode. 

Last week, six exciting young names in art celebrating Black culture took over @thegreatwomenartists Instagram account. To honour this takeover, this episode, as well as last week's, feature interviews with all six women about their practice and work. 

And WOW. Were these women were absolutely incredible to speak with.

First up we have Helene Love-Allotey who speaks in depth about her love for the great British artist, Lubaina Himid, and her experience visiting Himid's very moving and important exhibition "Meticulous Observations and Naming the Money". Housed at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, this show highlighted how Europe’s wealthy classes spent their money in the 19th century by using enslaved African men and women, which Himid awkwardly and unapologetically portrays in vibrant cut-out sculptures placed amongst the white and male-dominated permanent collection.

See more: 

https://www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk/exhibition/lubaina-himid-meticulous-observations-and-naming-money

@helenaloveallotey

Next up is the great Chloe Austin, a curator-in-training at London's Barbican Centre, and Institute of the International Visual Arts (Iniva), a radical visual arts organisation dedicated to developing an artistic programme that reflects on the social and political impact of globalisation, in which we speak at length about. We also discuss the institutions' position and reaction to this movement, as well as the three brilliant artists Deborah Findlater, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, and Elsa James. 

See more:

https://iniva.org/

https://iniva.org/programme/projects/chatting-in-the-stacks/

https://chloesinternalmonologue.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/black-boxes/

@chloejaaay 

And we end with the wonderful Emi Eleode, founder of the Instagram @arthistorytalks, a page that spotlights 4–5 artists from a non-Western country each month. We discuss her own work that plays on art history, her research into the history of dance as a ritual in Brazil, as well as artists Delphine Diallo and Amrita Sher-Gil. 

This is one of my favourite episodes EVER of The Great Women Artists Podcast so I hope you enjoy!

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

In episode 28 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews THREE brilliant guests: Lagos-based artist, Nengi Omuku, founder of @ablackhistoryofart Alayo Akinkugbe, and the amazing London-based artist, Michaela Yearwood-Dan.

Over the past six days some of the most exciting young names in art celebrating Black culture have been taking over @thegreatwomenartists Instagram account. To honour this takeover, this episode, and the next one will feature interviews with all six women about their practice and work. 

And WOW. Were these women completely incredible to speak with. We first speak to Nengi Omuku, the Slade BA and MA graduate whose work explores perceptions of race and gender, protest and notions of collective mourning, dealing with the coping mechanisms the body develops in order to be present. We speak at length about her aim to paint the mind capturing psychological notions in her sitters, as well as her interest in art as therapy.

See more: http://www.nengiomuku.com/ + @nengiomuku   

Works discussed: Funke, Nearing, Gathering, Male

Next up is the great Alayo Akinkugbe, the 19 year-old History of Art student at Cambridge University who created the Instagram, @ablackhistoryofart which highlights overlooked artists, sitters, curators, and thinkers from history to the present day. We discuss Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Faith Ringgold, as well as her participation in Decolonising Art History at Cambridge.

See more: @ablackhistoryofart

And wow, we end with the sensational, Michaela Yeawood-Dan. One of the MOST exciting and phenomenal young artists working in London right now, known for her incredibly beautiful, playful, vibrant and sometimes thick impastoed canvases that explore themes around class, culture, gender and nature. We speak about the artists' work and practice, in particular the text behind her work, and of course her love for the great Carrie Mae Weems.

See more: http://michaelayearwood-dan.com/ + @artistandgal 

This is one of my favourite episodes EVER of The Great Women Artists Podcast so I hope you enjoy!

This episode is sponsored by Alighieri 

https://alighieri.co.uk/

@alighieri_jewellery

Use the code: TGWA for 10% off! 

50% of ad revenue for this episode will be donated to the Stephen Lawrence Trust, Black Minds Matter, Black Lives Matter UK, and The Marsha P Johnson Institute. 

Follow us:

Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Amber Miller (@amber_m.iller)

https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/