Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

This is a two part episode about Vincent Van Gogh. Part 1 focuses on his early life and development up to his first masterpiece,The Potato Eaters from 1885. Next week we will discuss the mature phase of his career and how his style shifted upon moving to France. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this fun fact Friday mini episode, learn about the controversial conceptual art piece, ”Take the Money and Run.” The artist, Jens Haaning was loaned $84,000 for use in re-creating two of his previous works, but Haansing thought it would be better to give them 2 blank canvases and keep the money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Salvador Dali was among the oddest artists of the 20th century. He was known not only for his surrealist paintings, but also his surreal life. From his waxed mustache that is said to have outlived the artist, to antics like driving a Rolls Royce filled with cauliflower, Salvador Dali knew how to command people‘s attention. In this episode we discuss a bit about the man, the myth and his work, The...

For this week‘s Fun Fact Friday mini episode, learn a little bit about the smiley face. The iconic image of a yellow circle with two dots and a smile actually has a surprising history. The design was commissioned to boost morale around the office at an insurance company and almost instantly became a sensation. While the image is world famous, Harvey Ball, the graphic designer who created it was la...

Takashi Murakami is one of the most prominent contemporary Japanese painters. I spoke with Toki from the podcast Japan Explained to get some insights into Murakami and how his work is a reflection of modern and traditional Japanese culture. Takashi Murakami is well known for his Superflat artwork. The Superflat movement was named for an exhibition of Murakami‘s work in the year 2000. Murakami‘s pa...

Jackson Pollock grew up in a family that struggled financially. He was expelled from two different high schools and bounced around doing odd jobs early in his adulthood. When Peggy Guggenheim started to collect his work, it was like Jackson Pollock won the lottery. With success in the fine art world, came financial success and one of the most interesting legacies of Jackson Pollock is his ability...

For the season opener, I was joined by Garret McCorkle of the podcast No Country for History. His podcast focuses on obscure bits of American history so we focused on an awesome, but largely forgotten American painter. Janet Sobel may not be a household name, but her work was amazing, innovative and influential. While Jackson Pollock is credited with inventing the drip painting method and pioneeri...

I am wrapping up this season with the conclusion to my Arts Madness Tournament. Over the last 6 weeks, voters have narrowed the field from 64 down to 1 ultimate artist. I really appreciated everyone who took the time to participate. Hopefully you have learned more about some of your favorite artists and discovered some new ones. This episode is rebroadcasting the episode on the tournament's winner...

The Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world with an expansive collection of some of the greatest masterpieces ever created. Interestingly, it did not start out that way. The building actually started as a medieval fortress. It had a moat, walls and a fortified tower in the center. Of course as Paris expanded, the fortifications moved to the exterior of the city and the Louvre was con...

We are entering the final round of this year's Arts Madness Tournament. For those listeners outside the United States, every spring, there is a giant basketball tournament called, March Madness, as 64 different college teams compete. The Arts Madness Tournament is a shameless attempt to ride the coattails of the immensely popular NCAA basketball tournament, but with 64 diverse artists. For the las...

In 2019, Maurizio Cattelan displayed a piece at Art Basel Miami, and it grabbed headlines around the world. The artwork titled Comedian consisted of simply a banana duct taped to a wall. Cattelan was offering 3 editions of this work and actually sold two for $120,000 each. If that weren‘t enough, another artist at the show took the banana off the wall and ate it. David Datuna, a performance artist...

Georgia O‘Keeffe is considered the mother of American modernism. Her influence actually reached beyond American borders. Yayoi Kusama was not only inspired by O‘Keeffe, but Georgia O‘Keeffe was generous enough to give her advice and even offer to allow her a place to stay and financial support early in Kusama‘s career. Georgia O‘Keeffe appears to have not only been a great artist, but also a great...

For this week's Fun Fact Friday mini episode, I am sharing an interesting little tidbit I found about Georgia O'Keeffe. While she is best known for her paintings of nature specifically, her most popular works are close cropped images of flowers or images inspired by the desert landscapes she encountered while living in New Mexico. While her work was all about nature, she painted those vast, open d...

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was a Cuban American artist who rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his poignant minimalist installations. His stack pieces of unlimited edition prints make the fine art gallery space more democratic. Patrons are not only able to touch and take a piece from the artist, but the viewer becomes a collaborator as every person who takes one of the prints chan...

Andy Warhol was an odd dude with an expansive and extremely odd collection. He basically hoarded all he could with boxes of stuff that could fill warehouses. His collection ranged from the ordinary objects that were the subjects of his iconic pop art, to curious artifacts from history such as the mummified foot he kept in his studio. It is unclear where he got the foot, but a popular story is that...

For this week‘s episode, we focused on one of the most famous and influential Pop Artists of all time, Any Warhol. Andy Warhol was born, Any Warhola but later dropped the ‘a‘ because he loved mass production and tended to favor shortcuts, so I guess even his own name proved too much work. He said he dropped the name because his name was Czech and he thought Warhol was simpler. This change occurred...

For this fun fact Friday mini episode, I discuss the color purple. Purple has long been associated with royalty and that is largely because purple dyes have been hard to come by. The time consuming, labor and resource intensive process of producing purple dyes made them very expensive and thus only people of wealth and power could afford such finery.  As always, you can find more to learn about on...

For this episode, I spoke with Dr. Rosemary Lee an artist far more serious and accomplished than myself to gain some insights into the work of Bisa Butler. Specifically we talked about The Safety Patrol from 2018. For images, and more go to www. WhoArtEdPodcast.com Bisa Butler is a contemporary American artist. She was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended Howard University where her primary...

This is a part of my series of fun fact Friday mini episodes about different colors. This week you can learn a bit about the history of different pigments used to create blue in artworks. For a long time, blue pigment was more valuable than gold. Blue pigments were so labor intensive and expensive that some prominent artists like Michelangelo were said to have left some paintings unfinished becaus...

Marcus Bromander is one of the co-creators and co-designers of the extremely popular game, Among Us. For this episode, I spoke with Jeff Arndt, a fellow art teacher, about Bromander and his work.  Although Among Us is an online game, it was actually inspired by Bromander's love of a game he played with his friends in real life when he was growing up. The social aspects of gaming have become partic...

Remember the voting in round 1 of the Arts Madness tournament will begin Monday, March 1. Visit www. WhoArtEdPodcast.com for more information. This week's Fun Fact Friday mini episode is about the color green. Learn a little more about associations with the color green as well as sources of green in nature, in food and a surprising fact about green eyes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...

For this week‘s episode I talked with Chuck Hoff about Joe Mills. Joe is an artist based out of Chicago and both Chuck and I were lucky enough to work with him years ago. Joe Mills was born in Kentucky but he came to Illinois for college. He studied industrial design at the University of Illinois and after college, he worked as a toy designer. A big turning point in his artistic development came w...

Voting for the Arts Madness tournament will begin March 1. Right now, you can check out all 64 artists and enter your prediction to win at www. WhoArtEdPodcast.com  This week's fun fact Friday mini episode is all about the color yellow. The ancient Egyptians associated yellow with gold, and gold was symbolic of the gods and the eternal. Consequently, they used quite a bit of yellow to decorate the...

For this episode I sat down with my good friend David Pittman to talk about the amazing work of Duff Goldman, the Ace of Cakes. Duff Goldman is a culinary artist well known for his incredible artistry with cakes. He is part baker, part sculptor, part painter but definitely one amazing artist. His actual name is Jeffery Goldman, but his brother mispronounced it as Duffy and the name stuck. Througho...

I am continuing my fun fact series about colors. This episode is all about the color orange. I compiled a few fun facts about the color orange. For example, before the orange was brought to Europe in the 16th century, the color was simply referred to as yellow red. Orange has positive connections to warmth, energy and the divine all around the world. Orange pigment also has a long history of being...