It is the stuff of legend: Claude Monet discovers Japanese art in the late 1800s, something clicks, and he goes on to become the most famous artist in the world. But one of his greatest influences on the other side of the earth is a mystery, the artist behind the “great wave” and hundreds of other iconic images. The artist who calls himself Hokusai (at least for a time)—and won't be nearly as lucky as Monet.

You can see one of Monet’s paintings of the Japanese footbridge he built at Giverny here, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. You can see hundreds of Hokusai’s prints in the collection, including the “great wave,” here.

BIG NEWS! A new series of The Object LIVE!, our free live tapings of The Object podcast begins May 21 with "Talk Dürer to Me!" With fun quizzes, music, and of course storytelling, all about the quirky German genius Albrecht Dürer—on his 555th birthday—and the splendid weirdness of the Renaissance. Recorded live in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at our home museum in Minneapolis. Tickets are absolutely free but you do need to have them, available starting April 21 on the Tickets page at Artsmia.org.

It's the Season 8 premiere! Claude Monet, by the 1900s, is the most famous artist in the world, a singular genius (if not exactly genial). But there is another Monet: Blanche Hoschedé Monet. The only artist Claude Monet takes under his wing—and almost completely forgotten, until now.

A story of what it means to be an artist, and what happens when your story is not your own. You can see Hoschedé Monet's 1888 Snow Effect landscape, recently acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, here. 

BIG NEWS! A new series of The Object LIVE!, our free live tapings of The Object podcast begins May 21 with "Talk Dürer to Me!" With fun quizzes, music, and of course storytelling, all about the quirky German genius Albrecht Dürer—on his 555th birthday—and the splendid weirdness of the Renaissance. Recorded live in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at our home museum in Minneapolis. Tickets are absolutely FREE, available starting April 21 at Artsmia.org.

Leave us a review wherever you listen and subscribe so you never miss an episode as Season 8 gets rolling.

New season begins March 16! Now, an encore episode that was our most popular story a few seasons ago. About a woman who was once of the most recognizable  in the world, her long copper hair filling painting after painting, even if few people knew her name: Fanny Cornforth. Model, muse, and mistress to the most influential artists of the Victorian era, who she still had to fight for everything she got. Until, in the end, she lost the one thing she could count on for sure: herself.

You can see her in this 1868 painting, "I know a maiden fair to see," in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

Subscribe now so you never miss an episode of the upcoming season, leave us a review, and visit our home museum if you're in the Twin Cities area: the Minneapolis Institute of Art, now showing "Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945." 

Season 8 of The Object begins March 16! All-new episodes, bonus content, and more about the almost famous, the nearly lost, and more surprising true stories at the intersection of art and history. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode!

Now, enjoy the second in our bonus series of Fireside Stories: The incredible, fast, and forgotten life of painter Bob Thompson. The original Basquiat, seeming to come out of nowhere with sold-out shows of his colorful remixes of Old Masters. Riding with the Beat poets in the race to live all of life all at once. And leaving behind several lifetimes' worth of work—in just a few years.

You can see Thompson's Homage to Nina Simone, a reimagining of Nicolas Poussin's Bacchanal with Lute-Player, from about 1630, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

This rollicking, sold-out live show of The Object podcast was recorded February 7, 2026, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art with host Tim Gihring and musical guest jeremy messersmith. It's our Valentine's show, with quizzes, storytelling, and curator conversation all about the gods in—and often out of—love. 

Messersmith, a NPR Tiny Desk alum whose new song F••• This has become a viral hit, performs a choice selection of tunes about our tragicomic relationship with the heart, plays a quiz, and talks about the ideal love song. European art curator Rachel McGarry explains why we remain enamored of classical myths. And Gihring spins a story of Eros and Psyche across thousands of years.

A big thank-you to messersmith, McGarry, and show runner Dexter Carlson, who donned an inflatable plastic cupid-bear costume for her welcome remarks that probably should have remained petroleum. 

Our season 8 premiere is just weeks away in mid-March! Subscribe so you never miss an episode and keep an eye out for the next live taping sometime in May. 

One month to go until the new season of The Object premieres! Subscribe so you don't miss it, and in the meantime enjoy bonus and encore episodes like this one from early in The Object archives.

William Edmondson is a middle-aged laborer in Nashville, Tennessee, at the height of the Great Depression, when God tells him to carve a tombstone. Soon, he's the first African American artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. But his celebrity is strangely short-lived, and only much later does the real story of his rise and fall from the heights of the art world come to light. You can see one of his many sculptures of a ram, of the Dorset sheep variety local to Tennessee, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Free tickets are going fast for the next live taping of The Object podcast with special guest jeremy messersmith on February 7 in Mia’s historic Pillsbury Auditorium. A Valentine's show with jeremy performing live, storytelling, and "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" style quizzes, all about the art of love. It’s The Object LIVE!—everything you love about the podcast, live on stage. Reserve your free tickets here or at the Tickets page at artsmia.org.

Now on with the show: Wanda Gág was the original celebrity cat mom. The talented, bob-sporting, fiercely independent illustrator and author of Millions of Cats, a book that essentially invented the children’s genre and made her famous. She was every woman who liked men just fine but refused to build her life around them. Guest host Lizzi Ginsberg looks back at the surprising life and work she did create in the 1920s and ’30s, as she moved between Minnesota and New York.

You can see Gág’s marvelous self-portrait now on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, along with Roaring Twenties art in “Gatsby at 100.” And many other prints by her in the collection.

Free tickets are going fast for our next live taping of The Object podcast with special guest musician Jeremy Messersmith, quizzes, and storytelling—all about the art of love. February 7 at 2PM in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at our home museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A place to come together in love, beauty, and reflection. Get tickets and details at the Tickets page at Artsmia.org.

Now on with the show: Given the start to this year, we’re trying something—a series of bonus episodes called Fireside Stories. Slow down, get comfortable, and enjoy a short, reflective, AMSR-filled episode on the “gods of compassion,” the bodhisattvas who put others’ needs above their own, even if it means delaying their own nirvana.

There are quite a number of bodhisattvas on view right now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the special exhibition “Royal Bronzes: Cambodian Art of the Divine,” on view through January 18.

Big news: Free tickets are now available starting January 7 at 9:30 a.m. (CST) for the next live taping of The Object podcast. It's our Valentine's show on February 7 at 2 p.m. with special guest musician jeremy messersmith in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

The Object LOVE! Don't Go Breaking My Art! will include fun quizzes and prizes, music, curator conversation, and of course storytelling, all about the comedy and tragedy of the heart in love. It's an irreverent romp with Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Psyche, and other classical couples whose stories have long captured our imagination in art. Go to the Tickets page at artsmia.org and reserve your seats today!

Now on with the show: On January 7, 1889, Vincent van Gogh wrote his family a New Year's letter. He had just been through one of the worst crises of his young life, which would become as much a part of his legend as his art. But Van Gogh was always able to see the silver lining—until he couldn't. A reflection on the hopes we pin to the start of the calendar, and the grace of letting go.

You can see one of the many paintings of olive trees that he made as the year unfolded in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

NEWS! Tickets will be available starting January 7 for The Object LOVE!, our very Valentine's live show with special guest jeremy messersmith on February 7 in the Minneapolis Institute of Art's historic Pillsbury Auditorium. All about the gods in (and often out of) love, whose stories have long captured our imagination in art. Tickets are free but limited—go to the tickets page at the Mia website to reserve or for details. 

Now on with the show: No one lives forever. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying, and for a long time the noble way to avoid getting old and dying was to avoid getting old at all: the Greek notion of the “glorious death” that confers immortality in battle. It’s an idea that resurfaces throughout history—until it meets its match in a war of many deaths and little glory. You can see Kiss of Victory, the famous sculpture that kicks off this episode and launched the career of Sir Alfred Gilbert, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.