Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Rachel Whiteread is a prominent British sculptor and a leading figure among the Young British Artists (YBAs) who rose to prominence in the late 1980s. Unlike the provocative work of her peers, Whiteread’s art is characterized by a quiet, minimalist focus on "negative space"—the empty air inside or around everyday objects. By casting these voids in industrial materials like plaster, resin, and conc...

Jean-Antoine Houdon was one of the greatest neoclassical sculptors in the late 18th century. Shortly after the American Revolution, the governor of Virginia asked Thomas Jefferson to find a sculptor to make a marble statue of George Washington for the state capital building. Jefferson was a self-taught architect and a big believer in the neoclassical movement's use of symbolism in art to convey a...

My guest this week is ⁠Mark Vernon⁠, author of ⁠Awake! William Blake and the Power of Imagination⁠. We discussed William Blake, the famous poet and visual artist known for his spiritually charged work. The piece we discussed was ⁠The Ancient of Days⁠. This is an encore presentation. Every January/February, I release daily episodes to refresh everyone's memory on the 64 artists and artworks that wi...

Johannes Vermeer created stunning works and he is widely celebrated as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. This painting, Woman Holding a Balance is a work intended to encourage temperance and moderation being mindful that divine judgment is looming in the end. Related episodes: ⁠The Unbelievable Story of Han van Meegeren⁠ ⁠Jan van Eyck | The Arnolfini Portrait This is an encore...

The Alexander Mosaic, also known as the Battle of Issus Mosaic, is a masterpiece of ancient Roman artistry that continues to captivate viewers with its detailed depiction of a pivotal moment in history. Unearthed in the House of the Faun in Pompeii, this intricate mosaic offers a glimpse into the military prowess, political ambition, and cultural exchange of the ancient world. The mosaic captures...

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. This is an encore presentation. Every January/February, I release daily episodes to refresh everyone's memory on the...

Jean-Michel Basquiat has created some of the most highly valued American paintings ever to go on auction. Basquiat sought to remake art history in his image, and I would say he was successful. His triptych, Horn Players, is one of the artworks required for the AP Art History curriculum studied by American high school students. In the middle of February 1981, a group exhibition opened at P.S.1 in N...

Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych is a commentary on the nature of fame, celebrity, and mass media. Warhol appropriated a well-known image of Monroe, using repetition and contrasting colors to create a work that is both iconic and unsettling. The diptych format, traditionally used for religious works, elevates Monroe to a figure of almost religious significance, while also highlighting the manufacture...

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly is a pioneering figure who transformed glass from a functional, industrial material into a celebrated medium for fine art. Influenced by the rugged landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and early experiences in interior design, Chihuly’s artistic journey began with an experimental weaving project in 1963 where he first fused glass shards into a tapest...

China's Longmen Caves or Longmen Grottoes are a UNESCO world heritage site. Starting in the 5th century CE, artists chiseled away at the limestone carving out around 2300 caves and 110,000 statues. Because they were constructed over such a long period, the sculptures in the Longmen Caves not only reflect the religious tradition, but they track changes in artistic style over the centuries. Related...

Keith Haring, renowned for his iconic pop art and graffiti, rose to fame in the 1980s New York art scene. His signature style, characterized by bold lines, vibrant colors, and symbols like the radiant baby and barking dog, often conveyed social messages. Haring's art wasn't confined to galleries; it flourished in public spaces, notably subway stations, making it accessible to everyone. Despite his...

Jan van Eyck was a remarkable painter. He worked in oils during the Renaissance, and created stunning photorealistic portraits centuries before photography was developmed. In the Arnolfini portrait, he captures not only the subjects standing before him, but also a reflection of the room in a convex mirror showing the full scene and accurately rendering the distortions caused by the curved glass. T...

Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian-French artist known for his innovative style and contributions to the Op Art movement. One of Vasarely's most famous works is "Zebra," created in 1937. This painting showcases his ability to create optical illusions through the use of black and white stripes. When viewed from a distance, the stripes appear to vibrate and create a sense of movement. This technique, k...

Bridget Riley, born in London in 1931, is a prominent figure in the Op Art movement. Early life experiences, including wartime evacuation to Cornwall and exposure to nature's patterns, influenced her artistic sensibilities. Her style evolved with influences from Seurat, Pollock, and Balla. Riley's breakthrough came in the 1960s with black and white geometric paintings like "Fall" and "Current," wh...

Modernists said, “form follows function” focusing on how people will use a space, but Gehry focuses on how people will react to the space. His goal is to inspire, to make them feel. He talks about the challenge of creating feeling with inert materials. He says it is the movement that brings out a feeling. With his design in Bilbao, Spain, rather than simply designing a building to house a collecti...

The Deesis mosaic, located in the South Gallery of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, is a monumental work of Byzantine art dating back to approximately 1261 CE. Created during the Palaeologan Renaissance, a period of cultural and artistic rebirth following the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople, the mosaic represents a departure from the rigid, stylized forms typical of earlier Byzantine ar...

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...

Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" is an iconic Art Nouveau painting, renowned for its use of gold leaf and intricate patterns. The painting depicts a couple embracing in a passionate kiss, their bodies adorned with abstract designs that symbolize interconnectedness and the natural world. While the identities of the figures are unclear, the painting has been interpreted as representing mythological figures...

Salvador Dali's most famous painting is The Persistence of Memory from 1931. The painting is surprisingly small just 9 ½ by 13 inches or slightly larger than the average sheet of paper. It is one of the most widely recognized and referenced images of the surrealist movement. For those who don’t know it by name, you will likely recognize the description of clocks melting in the desert. The melting...

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 Crow...

Lee Krasner, born Lena Krassner in 1908, was a pivotal Abstract Expressionist artist often overshadowed by her marriage to Jackson Pollock. Despite this, she forged a unique artistic path, studying at the Women's Art School of Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design before embracing modernism after the opening of MoMA in 1929. Influenced by Hans Hofmann's Cubist theories, Krasner experimen...

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...

In this episode, I was thrilled to be joind once again by Tim Bogatz, host of Art Ed Radio from The Art of Education University. Writing for The Art of Ed was one of my career and if you want to find my articles, here is a link: https://theartofeducation.edu/author/kylewood/ and fellow art teachers, join Tim, me and thousands of other art teachers on the AOE Community Jacques-Louis David was a fou...

When you think of bold and revolutionary modern artists from the 20th century, you probably don't think of a grandmother laying across her living room floor painting, but maybe you should. Janet Sobel was a Ukrainian American painter who was dripping paint across the canvas long before Jackson Pollock "invented" the technique. Other artists mentioned in this episode: ⁠Jackson Pollock⁠ ⁠Alexander C...

The brilliance of Edward Hopper is that he was able to be simultaneously specific and concrete yet vague and leave a lot up to the viewer to interpret. In a painting like Nighthawks we see people gathered in a diner, but as viewers we are stuck on the outside looking in. We feel isolated and apart from the scene and as we look closer, we discover that the people inside the diner are isolated thems...