Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

One Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous works is not housed in a museum. It is in the Convent of Santa Maria in Milan Italy. It seems totally fitting for a depiction of the last supper was painted on the wall in the convent’s dining hall. Visitors today are often surprised by how enormous the work it. The People are life sized on this massive 15 by 29 foot painting. Another surprising fact is that whi...

Around 1040 CE Bi Sheng invented the first known moveable type system. Skipping ahead a few hundred years, the artist Xu Bing created Book from the Sky as a monumental print. It is probably among the most ambitious, labor-intensive, and useless books ever to be printed in China or anywhere else. He created 4,000 unique characters on wood blocks to print this massive "book" but while those characte...

Michael Weller is a painter based out of the UK known for his quiet and subtle paintings. He focuses on the shifts in color as he observes his subject in natural light. He often works on several paintings simultaneously capturing the arrangement from different angles. Each piece is the product of long and careful study and yet the finished work has a sense of calm and ease to it. Find more from Mi...

Raku bowls are humble. They are hand formed starting from a flat, circular base and coils built up around the sides. The process results in each piece being unique with evidence of the artist’s hand in the creative process. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you are thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It is online, flexible and convenient to meet your needs on your schedu...

Jeff Koons, born in 1955, displayed an early interest in art. As a teenager, he called Salvador Dali's hotel and arranged to meet the artist. He was inspired by Dali and went on to study art in college. Koons supported himself with various jobs, including working at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, working the information desk at MoMA and as a commodities broker in New York. He gained re...

For today's mini episode, I thought it might be nice to change things up a little bit and cover the history of a medium rather than a specific artwork. Learn a little bit about pencils, what the numbers and letters mean, what is in the core of a pencil and how colored pencils differ from regular pencils. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you are thinking of starting therapy, give BetterH...

I have always been interested in "fine art" that makes the leap from museum walls to popular culture. I also think there is a lot of brilliant design happening in spaces and on things that we see so frequently we become blind to them. People rarely consider the work and the artistry behind the things we interact with the most. Julie Averbach is the author of the new book, The Art of Trader Joe's....

Writer and Illustrator, David Lee Csicsko, talks about Sister Corita Kent, Tamara de Lempicka and Lee Godie. All three artists are included in Csicsko's new book, Iconic Artists. The book covers 50 great artists and in this episode we talked about three great female artists. Listen to part 1 to learn about 3 male artists from the book. Buy a copy of Iconic Artists from Trope Publishing, Amazon or...

Writer and Illustrator, David Lee Csicsko, talks about Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alexander Calder, and Keith Haring. All three artists are included in Csicsko's new book, Iconic Artists. The book covers 50 great artists and in this episode we talked about three great male artists and in part 2, we will discuss three great female artists. Buy a copy of Iconic Artists from Trope Publishing, Amazon...

"Home Alone" is a beloved holiday classic that blends slapstick comedy with genuine emotion and suspense. Writer John Hughes drew inspiration from his own anxieties about accidentally leaving his child behind, crafting a story that explores universal themes of family, belonging, and the challenges of growing up. The film's success can be attributed to its meticulous casting, including Macaulay Cul...

Arts Educators Save the World brings together successful artists and their mentors for a conversation about arts education. The show features amazing guests like the composer and musician Lin-Manuel Miranda, actor Bradley Whitford, ceramicist Sharif Bey, comedian Cecily Strong who all say that arts educators made them who they are. The show reminds us that arts educators are superheroes and the wo...

Machu Picchu would translate to “old mountain” but it isn’t that old. While stone ruins are often associated with ancient civilizations thousands of years old, Machu Picchu is relatively young having been built in the middle of the 15th century. Nestled high in the Andes mountains of Peru, this ancient Incan citadel is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a bucket-list destination for travelers from a...

My guest this week is Patrick Quéré who shared a fascinating insight into the work of Nicolas de Staël. Patrick's great grandparents got to know the artist in the 1940s as he visited their Paris restaurant. Nicolas de Staël gave Patrick's great-grandparents a painting he called The Key. It was a deeply personal piece, a small canvas that had been resized, restretched, cut and patched by the artist...

Petra, the ancient city carved into the sandstone cliffs of Jordan, is a testament to the ingenuity and artistry of the Nabataean civilization. Established in the 4th century BC, Petra's strategic location along trade routes fueled its prosperity. The Nabataeans carved impressive structures like the Treasury and the Monastery directly into the rock face using chisels, hammers, and picks. The city'...

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was established to honor those who died in the Vietnam War. Jan Scruggs, a veteran of the conflict, spearheaded the creation of the memorial and after a nationwide design competition, Maya Lin's design was chosen. Her design was controversial for its minimalist and non-traditional approach, but ultimately it was built and has become an important place for reflection a...

Max Beckmann was a German painter born on February 12, 1884. While he is often associated with the expressionist movement, he actually rejected that label. He was a part of the New Objectivity movement which shared some similarities with expressionists, but while the expressionists sought to portray their inner self for the world to see, the new objectivity movement was outward looking holding a m...

The iconic image of "Rosie the Riveter" is often associated with female empowerment and the contributions of women to the war effort during World War II. However, the image we commonly associate with Rosie, the "We Can Do It!" poster, was not originally intended for that purpose. Created by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric, it aimed to boost worker morale and reduce absenteeism i...

Hilma af Klint was a painter making abstract art years before men like Kandinsky and she was exploring automatic drawing long before the surrealists. She knew she was well ahead of her time, which is why she stipulated in her will, that many of her greatest works were not to be displayed until 20 years after her death. Related episodes: Hilma af Klint | What a Human Being Is Spirit Photography Thi...

Who ARTed began five years ago. My love of art began with the Impressionists and Post Impressionists, and I thought there would be no better topic to cover in my anniversary episode. We talked broadly about the movements then discussed five great works including Impression Sunrise by Claude Monet, The Cradle by Berthe Morisot, Paris Street Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte, The Starry Night by Vinc...

The Ouija Board was patented in 1891 by Elijah Bond, and that is an odd and interesting story. Bond filed a patent for the "Ouija or Egyptian luck-board" but the patent office was initially hesitant to grant it. They considered the board's ability to answer questions to be unexplainable and potentially fraudulent. To convince the patent officer, Bond and Helen Peters (his sister-in-law) conducted...

Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian artist known for his provocative and satirical sculptures and installations that challenge the norms of the art world. His works often spark controversy and public discourse, blurring the lines between high art and everyday objects. Some of his most recognized pieces include, "Strategies," his mock up of a magazine cover intended to help him land a spot on the actua...

Starting in 1917, the US Radium Corporation hired a bunch of young women to paint watch faces with radium based paints that would glow in the dark. For these young women, it seemed like a great job. They were paid about 3 times what the average working woman was getting at that time, they got to work with this cool new material that glowed like something from science fiction, and the job was relat...

Reggie Laurent is a contemporary artist based out of Atlanta. Laurent is a largely self-taught artist working in a variety of media and often on unexpected surfaces. He is known for his DNA series of paintings characterized by bold colors and elaborate patterns in abstract compositions. He says that the DNA series is largely similar to his childhood doodles and the creative expression that was alw...

Hieronymus Bosch was a 15th-century Dutch painter whose fantastical and often unsettling works continue to captivate viewers today. His most famous painting, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," is a triptych that depicts a complex narrative of creation, temptation, sin, and damnation. Bosch's unique visual vocabulary, drawn from religious iconography, folklore, alchemy, and contemporary social mores...

My guest this week is Emily Beeny, the Curator in charge of European paintings for The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She spoke with me about Mary Cassatt at work, an exhibition coming to The Legion of Honor after being displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Check out these links to learn more: https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2014/degas-cassatt.html  https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/ma...