Tamar Avishai

The Lonely Palette

Arts EN ↓ 107 episodes

Welcome to The Lonely Palette, the podcast that returns art history to the masses, one painting at a time. Each episode, host Tamar Avishai picks a painting du jour, interviews unsuspecting museum visitors in front of it, and then dives deeply into the object, the movement, the social context, and anything and everything else that will make it as neat to you as it is to her. For more information, visit thelonelypalette.com | Twitter @lonelypalette | Instagram @thelonelypalette.

Author

Tamar Avishai

Category

Arts

Podcast website

www.thelonelypalette.com

Latest episode

Jun 23, 2026

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Episodes

Ep. 49 - Claes Oldenburg's "Giant Toothpaste Tube" (1964) 10.09.2020

Somewhere between the life of the mind and the boots on the ground sits Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, who wants us to see not only that both of those worlds are one and the same, but that there's value, and even beauty, to our stuff, and that maybe we can finally let ourselves admit it. See the images: bit.ly/3hcHjVq Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist D...

Episode 48 - Anselm Kiefer's "Margarete and Sulamith" (1981) 03.08.2020

This episode was produced with support from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Learn more at www.sfmoma.com . See the images: bit.ly/31gUSwW Music used: The Blue Dot Sessions, “The Bus at Dawn,” “Silky,” Drone Pine,” “Tiny Bottles,” “Inamorata,” “Tapoco,” “The Summit,” “Cirrus,” “Derailed,” “Insatiable Toad,” “Dolly and Pad,” “A Pleasant Strike” John Williams, performed by Itzhak Perlman & Pi...

Ep. 47 - George Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte" (1884-86) 04.05.2020

Grab a parasol, put your monkey on a leash, and come spend Sunday in the Park with George, exploring how a canvas this monumental and as frozen as Dippin' Dots can help us better understand the world in his day, in Cameron Frye's, and in our own. See the images: https://bit.ly/2L0qPCg Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions...

Ep. 40 Re-Release - Frida Kahlo's "Dos Mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)" (1928) 29.03.2020

The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: we go beneath the flowers, the unibrow, the broken body, and the shadow of her marriage, to reframe the fame of Frida Kahlo: the Cult Icon of Humanness. See the images: bit.ly/39qX739 Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Dja...

Ep. 46 - Patty Chang's "Melons (At A Loss)" (1998) 22.03.2020

The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: you're rooted in place, unable to look away, and questioning everything you thought you know about femininity, self-nourishment, and a woman's right to her own body. Basically, Patty Chang's got you right where she wan...

Ep. 45 - Georgia O'Keeffe's "Deer's Skull with Pedernal" (1936) 15.03.2020

The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: there's no better way to combat a world holding its breath than with a deep lungful of fresh Southwestern air, care of America's most misattributed painter of vagina flowers, Georgia O'Keeffe. See the images: bit.ly/39...

Ep. 44 - Louise Bourgeois' "Pillar" (1949-50) 08.03.2020

The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: you’ve never noticed the carnality of the body you live in, and the rawness of the emotions that live inside that body, until you find yourself spun into French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois’s web. See the images:...

Ep. 43 - Carmen Herrera's "Blanco y Verde (no. 1)" (1962) 01.03.2020

The Lonely Palette is currently the podcast-in-residence at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, highlighting five objects from the ongoing exhibition "Women Take the Floor." This week: let's join 104-year-old Cuban-American Hard Edge painter Carmen Herrera in celebrating the straight line, not just the shortest distance between two points, but the most infinitely beautiful as well. See the images: ww...

Ep. 42 - Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1829–1831) 27.02.2020

Sure, you've seen it a million times in a million memes, but when was the last time you actually stopped to contemplate the incredible power of this Japanese ukiyo-e print? Or for that matter, the incredible power of a wave itself? See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/202…awa-18301831 Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Falaal,” “Dirty Wal...

Ep. 41 - Jan Van Eyck's "Arnolfini Portrait" (1434) 01.12.2019

Whoever said the devil was in the details clearly had a thing for Northern Renaissance portraiture. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…ortrait-1434 Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Our Son the Potter,” “Bundt,” “Pacing,” “Secret Pocketbook,” “Oriel,” “Floretin Interlude” Poddington Bear, “Clay” J...

Bonus - Open Source, "The Bauhaus In Your House," ft. The Lonely Palette 09.10.2019

The Lonely Palette is on break until November 2019, so every Wednesday in October, a different Hub & Spoke producer will take the host's chair to present an episode of their show that Tamar is especially fond of. Enjoy this month's podcast petri dish of art, culture, history, and society, and subscribe to any and all Hub & Spoke shows at www.hubspokeaudio.org . This week: Open Source with Christop...

Bonus - Artists of Camberville interviews Tamar Avishai 09.08.2019

On July 29, 2019 (the day after the birth of my son!), host and producer Danielle Monroe posted this interview we had recorded the week before for her podcast "Artists of Camberville." This was one of best conversations I've ever had about the origins of "The Lonely Palette" and the trials and tribulations of art-viewing, meaning-making, script-writing, audio podcasting about t...

Ep. 40 - Frida Kahlo's "Dos Mujeres (Salvadora y Herminia)" (1928) 19.07.2019

See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…-dos-mujeres Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Jat Poure,” “Li Fonte,” “Clouds at the Gap,” “Master,” “When the Guests Have Left,” “Curiously and Curiously,” “Thread Ceylon,” “Gondola Blue” Tinpan Orange, “Song for Frida Kahlo” Support the show: www.pat...

Ep. 39 - Rembrandt van Rijn's "Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh" (1632) 07.06.2019

It isn't 17th century Dutch art if we're not going so deeply into Rembrandt's soul and so close to the meticulous details of his virtuosic portraiture that we make the guards nervous. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…enburgh-1632 Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Lovers Hollow” “Tailru...

TLP Interview with Dan Byers, Director of Harvard's Carpenter Center 05.04.2019

Tamar met Dan when she was a worshipful high school freshman and he was (to her) an übercool junior who was not only the arts editor of Thoughtprints, the school's art/lit mag, but also spent his free time in the fine art studio, bending the charcoal like Beckmann. Now he's the Director of the Carpenter Center of Visual Arts at Harvard University, she's an art history podcaster, and they reconnect...

Ep. 38 - Wassily Kandinsky's "Untitled" (1922) 29.03.2019

The later work of Russian ex-pat turned German Expressionist turned indispensable Bauhaus faculty member Wassily Kandinsky is a lot like the Bauhaus itself: a disparate collection of pieces parts that ends up assembling itself into a transparent, efficient, powerfully cohesive, form-follows-function whole. This episode was a collaboration with WBUR's Radio Open Source: check them out at radioopens...

Ep. 37 - Ansel Adams' "The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming" (1942) 15.03.2019

Let's explore America the Beautiful, the Complicated, and the Contradictory, where a purple mountain has no sense of its own majesty, through the lens of the quintessential dorm room poster photographer Ansel Adams. See the images: http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2019/3/8/episode-37-ansel-adams-the-tetons-and-snake-river-grand-teton-national-park-wyoming-1942 Music used: Django Reinhardt,...

Ep. 36 - Behold the Monkey 31.01.2019

The fruits of the Second Annual Year-End Patreon Listener Challenge has us staring directly into the cold dead eyes of the beast! How could this restoration of a forgotten 19th century Spanish fresco have gotten so grotesquely botched, and what does it tell us about the challenges of art restoration, religious iconography, and iconoclasm? And more importantly, Jesus, why do you look like a shark?...

TLP Interview with Cecilia Vicuña, Poet & Artist 16.12.2018

On October 10, 2018, both the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Cecilia Vicuña herself were generous enough to give me the opportunity to take a few moments away from the installation of "Disappeared Quipu" and interview Vicuña. We talked about bridging the masculinity of Land Art and the femininity of Fiber Art, the origins of Vicuña's life as an artist, and how her own awareness has evo...

Ep. 35 - Cecilia Vicuña's "Disappeared Quipu" (2018) 16.12.2018

Thick woolen knots, suspended from the ceiling, alive with projections and immersed in sound. You might not realize that Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña has woven together your awareness of your own awareness, but maybe you just needed some help translating it. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…d-quipu-2018 Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, &quot...

Ep. 34 - Dance Dance Revolution 15.11.2018

We're trying a little something different today: what happens when Disney scares the pants off you as a kid, and then, in mining the roots of your existential dread, you realize that Henri Matisse and Igor Stravinsky both had their pants scared off too, and that explains a whole heck of a lot about early 20th century modernism? Let's find out together. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/epis...

Ep. 33 - Jean-Honoré Fragonard's "The Desired Moment" (c. 1770) 14.09.2018

Powder those wigs and ungird those loins: today we're diving deep into the curves, pastels, and licentious yearnings of a ridiculously saucy little style known as Rococo. See the Images: http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2018/9/8/episode-33-jean-honor-fragonard-the-desired-moment-c-1770 Music Used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" Th...

Ep. 32 - René Magritte's "The Son of Man" (1964) 29.08.2018

Ever have a day when you just feel a little... blocked? Well, sure as God made little green apples, Surrealist René Magritte feels you. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…-of-man-1964 Music used: Django Reinhardt, "Django's Tiger" The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, "Roundpine", "Borough", "Building Th...

Ep. 31 - Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Byrd Theater, Richmond, 1993" (1993) 13.07.2018

Trying to capture time in art is like trying to pin a wave upon the sand or hold a moonbeam in your hand. So leave it to Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto to do it so effectively by taking us to the Golden Age of Cinema. "Seeking Stillness" is on view at the MFA, Boston until September 3, 2018. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…nd-1993-1993 Music used: The Andrew...

Ep. 30 - Donatello's "Madonna of the Clouds" (c. 1425-1435) 31.05.2018

Join the OG Ninja Turtle as he guides you into the Renaissance by way of an exquisite tour of heaven. See the images. Music Used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" Lobo Loco, "Piano Cora Theme" The Blue Dot Sessions, "UpUpUp and Over", "Slow Line Stomp", "Lakeside Path", "Perspiration", "Threads and Veils", "Moon Bicycle Theme" Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees" Support the show by becom...

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