The Object

As long as people have told stories, we have told stories about animals. Stories of slow turtles and fast rabbits, sly foxes and cunning monkeys, that are really stories about ourselves. But why? What can animals tell us about human nature? And what happens to our fellow creatures when we turn them—in art and literature and myth—into something they’re not? You can see Edwin Landseer’s startling pa...

Leonora Carrington has never felt at home in her wealthy, conservative family. But when she meets the Surrealists in the 1930s, and runs from everything she knows, it will take everything she has to become the artist and writer she wants to be. Most importantly: her singular imagination, which reveals the world as both more magical and more haunted than most of us care to admit. You can see her fe...

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 sculpture...

The man behind "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" was one of the richest, most popular authors in the world—an adventurous celebrity who could fight as well as write. But many of Alexandre Dumas’ readers today don’t know that he was Black—or that his best story may have been his own. A portrait of Alexandre Dumas, widely reproduced in his day, was recently acquired by the Minne...

In the 1970s, Georgia O’Keeffe is supposedly the hermit savant of the New Mexico badlands, rarely heard and seldom seen, even as the outside world can’t get enough of her enigmatic art. But when curators, journalists, and even the FBI come calling, it seems the head ghost of Ghost Ranch is the host with the most—and hardly ever alone. A fresh look at a myth we can’t stop believing. You can see one...

(Season 4 premiere) It’s one of the largest jade sculptures in the world, a 640-pound mountain commissioned by the Chinese emperor. But in 1901, in the ugly aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, it ends up leaving China with an American diplomat—only to resurface on the dinner table of a lumber baron. It’s a story of power and scandal, a story as old as stone: can anyone be king of the hill for long?...

In 1852, Harriet Hosmer packs her pistol, her anatomy degree, and two pictures of a sculpture she made and moves to Rome. There, among other “emancipated women” in the expat colony, she becomes one of the world’s most famous artists. But it’s the spirit world that truly calls to her, the realm of the dead that she channels through clairvoyance and seances. So what happens when she answers? (This e...

Elizabeth Catlett, the granddaughter of enslaved African-Americans, is a struggling artist at the height of Jim Crow. But when she moves to Mexico City in 1946, she finds love, inspiration, and eventually fame. There's just one catch: she can't come home. (This episode first aired in March 2020.) New season begins March 14. Check out her work in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art:...

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” wrote Tom Robbins, the novelist. He could have been referring to Henri Rousseau, the fin de siècle autodidact who begins painting seriously in retirement: storybook-style scenes of exotic animals and jungles that eventually catch the eye of Picasso and Matisse. A story worth remembering as you contemplate a new year, same as the old year—or not. You...

It’s good to be the pope in the 1600s. But staying pope is not so easy, as the famous Barberini family finds out when one of their own takes up the tiara in 1623. As Rome fills up with their art, and dungeons fill up with their enemies, can they survive the forces of change threatening their worldview—and the forces of the occult threatening to kill the pope on Christmas Day? You can see some of t...

Rembrandt and Lievens were friends and foes, two of the most promising artists of the Dutch Golden Age. But like Mozart and Salieri, one is remembered as an all-time great, the other is mostly forgotten. Only now is the true story of Rembrandt’s rival being told--a story of ego and admiration, tragedy and triumph, forgery and greed. And it’s rewriting everything we know about the master and the na...

When Gordon Parks becomes the first Black photographer at LIFE magazine, in 1949, he’s determined to show the full measure of Black lives in America. Whether the magazine, and the rest of America, is ready or not. You can see "American Gothic," Parks’ photograph of Ella Watson that is featured in this episode, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/a...

When World War II begins, Lee Miller is one of the most sought-after women in the world--a celebrated model, an irresistible muse, and an emerging photographer in her own right. So why does she trade the high life for the front line, risking everything to become the only female photojournalist allowed in combat?

In the early 1800s, the four famous bronze horses of Venice are restored to their place atop St. Mark's Basilica, after a long and humiliating absence. But when American artist Charles Caryl Coleman arrives in Venice, in the 1870s, his celebrated painting of the horses exposes some clues to their real origins. A story of empire and theft, and a betrayal that forever changed the world. You can see...

Mademoiselle Lange is the first celebrity actress in France, as famous for her lovers as her looks. But when the French Revolution roils the country, she is forced to fight for her life, and meets her match in a rising artist who is commissioned to paint her portrait. A picture that will upend both their lives--and the art world--in dramatic fashion. You can see the scandalous portrait mentioned i...

In 1852, Harriet Hosmer packs her pistol, her anatomy degree, and two pictures of a sculpture she made and moves to Rome. There, among other “emancipated women” in the expat colony, she becomes one of the world’s most famous artists. But it’s the spirit world that truly calls to her, the realm of the dead that she channels through clairvoyance and seances. So what happens when she answers? You can...

When Frida Kahlo dies, in 1954, she is soon forgotten. And then, suddenly, she seems to be everywhere: on magnets, puzzles, underwear, flip-flops. How did this remarkable artist become an international icon, an emoji, a figure of fervid devotion? And what does she mean to those who believe? You can see Yasumasa Morimura's "An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo," mentioned in the show, in the collecti...

They are illusions, no more real than someone being sawed in half onstage. Yet the veiled ladies that Raffaelle Monti sculpts in the 1800s are very real to him. Poignant symbols of an identity he’s forced to conceal, even as they make him famous. To launch Season 3, it’s a story of pride and prejudice and dreams just out of reach. Here you can see Monti’s Veiled Lady, c. 1860, in the collection of...

When the young Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani moves to Paris, in the early 1900s, he soon meets a very talented (and very married) Russian poet. What happens when art and love come together, as the rest of the world is falling apart? You can see one of Modigliani’s iconic Head sculptures here, from the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1502/head-...

As the page finally turns on 2020, enjoy this bonus episode on the New Year's illustrations made by Winslow Homer for Harper's Weekly magazine in 1869. At a moment surprisingly similar to our own, the American artist captured something of the feeling then, even as his life--and art history--was about to change forever. You can see the illustrations in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of...

Mermaids had been surfacing in art for thousands of years when, in the 1880s, Edward Burne-Jones began painting them as avatars of a radical new female identity in the corseted Victorian era. A story of desire and danger as legendary as the creatures themselves. You can see one of Burne-Jones' early mermaid paintings, "A Sea-Nymph," at the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia....

Artists have captured unicorns for thousands of years, and for most of that time people thought they were both magical and real. What can an imaginary creature tell us about ourselves? What did we lose when we stopped believing? And why do we still love them anyway? You can see unicorns in art through the ages in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, including this tapestry from the...

From narwhals to nautilus shells, dragon eggs to mermaid hands, the obsession with oddities in the Age of Discovery may seem, well, odd. But did the study of outliers, in the early version of museums, help make us the rational creatures we are today? See the nautilus shell cup from this episode here: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/111675/nautilus-shell-cup-germany

The animalier artists love lions and tigers and bears — anything with teeth and no business being in Paris in the 1800s. No one more than Rosa Bonheur, the smoking, joking, pants-wearing painter who becomes a celebrity, the most famous female artist of her time, by embracing the very things men fear most. You can see one of her lion prints here: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/10491/royalty-at...

A mysterious stone sculpture, supposedly found in Mexico, is hailed as a Chac Mool, the iconic Mayan vessel of human sacrifice. It tours Europe as a masterpiece of ancient Mesoamerican art. It's featured in magazines and books. But a surprising discovery suddenly begs the question: What is it really? See the Chac Mool for yourself here: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/17203/chacmool-maya