Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Shigeru Miyamoto has developed some of the most popular games of all time including Mario which is the most successful game franchise ever. Mario has actually been in 250 videogames and The Super Mario Brothers movie was the first major motion picture ever made based on a videogame. Well maybe that one was a little regrettable, but I’m sure the next Mario movie will be great.  Interestingly though...

Rene Magritte's painting, Son of Man, is among the most famous images of the Surrealist Movement. It is one of the few artworks that transcends the museum and has become a part of pop culture. Actually technically it isn’t even in the museums. Son of Man is privately owned and rarely seen on public display, but it has been referenced in books, movies like Stranger than Fiction and The Thomas Crown...

Martha Graham was a pioneer of modern dance. She was 17 years old when she saw her first dance performance by Ruth St. Denis. A few years later she began studying at Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. In 1922, she danced in a silent film that tried to synchronize the live sound with the film. Basically, they had the dancer and conductor on film an...

Robert Rauschenberg came on the scene in the 1940s and made a name for himself with the idea of the combine. He not only blurred the lines, he eliminated the distinctions between media as he combined painting and sculpture. Later, in the 1950s he began making plain white paintings, but in 1953, he came up with an idea for something more revolutionary and even more empty than a plain white canvas....

Norman Rockwell was an incredible artist. He was not always respected as an illustrator, but his nostalgic images of small town America were incredibly popular as they graced the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. His Four Freedoms series was particularly popular. Initially the work was rejected by the US government when Rockwell pitched the series, but after seeing the final works and how popul...

Alma Thomas was an amazing African American painter known for her abstract paintings with bold brush strokes that take on a mosaic quality. Network Survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/airwave Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form b...

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was a conceptual artist who became well known in the 1980s and 90s for his works that broke down the barrier between artist and audience. Many of his works invited the audience to become a part of the creative process making the work more dynamic and engaging. Network Survey: www.surveymonkey.com/r/airwave Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which ar...

The Apollo 11 Stones were not from the moon and really had nothing to do with the NASA mission, but they happened to be discovered as news of the moon landing came over the short-wave radio. Still these stones found in a remote cave in Africa show the remarkable capacity for imagination that makes us human. Network Survey (fill it out for a chance to win a $500 Amazon gift card) www.surveymonkey.c...

Arthur Boyd drew a lot of inspiration from religion, mythology and his own personal experiences. In the painting of Nebuchadnezzar on Fire Falling Over a Waterfall, he draws parallels between the biblical figure and Icarus who flew too close to the sun, then he set the scene in the Australian bush. Boyd has said that this work was partly a way of grappling with his trauma of having born witness to...

Jack Kirby created some of the biggest names in the golden age of comics including: Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, Black Panther, The Incredible Hulk. He basically populated the Marvel Universe. In 1970 though he felt like he wasn't getting the credit he deserved there and left Marvel for DC. There he created a series, Fourth World which I imagine he thought would demonstrate his brilliance...

Robert Smithson decided to make monumental sculptures using perhaps the world’s oldest material, the earth itself, but he used modern tools to shape it in a way and on a scale rarely seen. Spiral Jetty is as the name would suggest, a spiral. Part of what makes it special is the enormousness of it. On the peninsula at Rozel Point on Utah’s Great Salt Lake, Smithson created his most famous monumenta...

Katsushika Hokusai is best known for The Great Wave Off of Kanagawa, part of his series of 36 Views of Mount Fuji. His family was in the mirror business, but Hokusai showed a proclivity for art starting at a young age. When he was 14 he started apprenticing as a wood carver. He spent 4 years carving wood blocks to use as stamps for printmaking. He then went on to study under artists to produce his...

Wassily Kandinsky was an artist, teacher and art theorist in the early 20th century. His work was very influential in the development of modern, abstract art. He was likely able to paint differently because he experienced the world differently. Kandinsky is thought to have had a rare condition called synesthesia, which is a combining of the senses. For him sound and color were linked. He would see...

In August of 1973, the Australian government bought a Jackson Pollock painting for $2 million. It was the highest price paid for work of an American artist and it was a huge scandal in Australia. Most people thought it was a waste and inconceivable that a Pollock would be worth as much as a Rembrandt. Pollock's work seems so simple and direct that it is easy to forget how revolutionary it was. Rel...

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 Art...

Today Diego Rivera is less of a household name than his wife Frida Kahlo, but in the early 20th century, he was the more established artist. Rivera was born December 8th, 1886 in Guatajaunto Mexico. As a 3 year old, he was caught drawing on the walls, but instead of getting angry, his parents chose to encourage his creativity by hanging canvas and chalkboards on the walls. He would go through a lo...

The bulk of Olowe’s carvings seem to have been both decorative and functional artworks for the Yoruba kings and prominent families. One of his celebrated works for example is the veranda post that sits in the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. In that piece we see the elongated neck and oval faces that were a part of his signature style. Traditionally Yoruba artists used scale and proport...

Christo and Jeanne Claude are best known for their monumental works using fabric to transform public spaces. These massive works outside of the museum or gallery context helped to bring art to the masses. Whether people wanted to or not, they were forced to reconsider the space as the building, or the coast was covered in masses of fabric. Related Episodes: Christo and Jeanne Claude | The Floating...

Frank Lloyd Wright was one of America's most famous and influential architects. He famously said, "No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other." It was this emphasis on unity between the construction and the surrounding landscape that made Falling Water such a breathtaking design. Re...

Ai Weiwei is possibly the most interesting man in the world. He is not only a famous contemporary artist. He was a top rated blackjack player, a political prisoner and released a heavy metal album about his incarceration. Related episodes: Ai Weiwei (full episode) Marchel Duchamp Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Gi...

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian artist best known for The Scream. He created multiple versions of the piece using paint, pastels, and lithography. The Scream is one of the rare works of art that resonates with audiences well beyond the museum. It has become a part of popular culture and it is among the most recognizable and widely parodied works of art. Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Br...

Related Episodes: KAWS (full episode) The Art World is Bananas Take the Money and Run Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27 will get a $50 Amazon gift card) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. Connect with me: Web...

This episode covers a little bit about Takashi Murakami, the contemporary Japanese artist. Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27 will get a $50 Amazon gift card) Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. Connect with me...

Romare Bearden grew up during the Harlem Renaissance. He enlisted in the army during World War 2 and in addition to painting, he made collages, he wrote and he loved music. One of my favorite works of Bearden's is based on a Renaissance painting imagining the return of Odysseus. In his work, Bearden puts black people into classic mythology because representation matters and he wants a diverse audi...

Matt Groening is the creator of The Simpsons, one of the most successful cartoons of all time. Related episodes: Homer Simpson (full episode) Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27 will get a $50 Amazon gift card) Who...