The Great Women Artists

TODAY on the GWA Podcast, is art historian, Alyce Mahon discussing the great Surrealist, Dorothea Tanning.

Born in Illinois in 1910, where she said “nothing happened but the wallpaper”, Tanning immersed herself in gothic literature to escape to other worlds. Travelling to Paris to hunt down the Surrealists, Tanning “entered” or “birthed” herself into art in 1942 with her self-portrait “Birthday”, which sees her bare-breasted and standing in front of slightly ajar doors that seemingly lead to nowhere.

Settling in NYC, where she exhibited with Peggy Guggenheim, it was then to the wide-open landscape of Sedona Arizona, where she painted Caspar David Friedrich-like paintings of herself standing before nature – ”asserting the centrality of woman” (as Mahon wrote in her new book). She then returned to postwar France and, switching up her style, moved into a cloud-like and splintered abstractions, before turning to bodily-like soft-sculptures. Although she famously said, "don’t ask me to explain my paintings".

Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and a Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, Mahon is one of the leading scholars on Surrealism in the world today. The author of numerous books including Surrealism and the Politics of Eros, 1938-1968 (2005), Eroticism & Art (2005), The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde (2020), Mahon has also curated or advised on exhibitions on the likes of Leonor Fini, the great Argentine-born artist known for her meticulously rendered, proto-punk renaissance-like works, who she discussed with us on episode 48, as well as the Indian-born, once Cornish-based Ithell Colquhoun.

Mahon was the curator of the monumental exhibition at Tate Modern in 2018, and now – has just published a brilliant, extensive book: Dorothea Tanning, a Surrealist world – our with Yale UP this month – that charts her life story across the places she lived in America and France and the place she imagined in her art, bringing alive her works, steeping them in history, and introducing us to Tanning’s surreal world – and I can’t wait to find out more.

Alyce's book: https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300244601/dorothea-tanning/

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: www.famm.com/en/ www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037
Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield

TODAY on the GWA podcast: curator SONNET STANFILL on ELSA SCHIAPARELLI!

Sonnet is the Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A, where she has worked since 1999. Stanfill has curated numerous highly acclaimed exhibitions, such as New York Fashion Now, Ballgowns: British Glamour since 1950, and the landmark The Glamour of Italian Fashion (2014), which traveled to several museums across the US. She has published and lectured widely on various aspects of fashion design and holds an MA in the history of dress. But the reason why we are speaking with her today is because she has just curated the monumental exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A, which charts the fearless life and daring work of the artist, designer, surrealist, influencer and general pioneer of who the modern woman was and what she could be. A creator of surrealist wonderlands with her fantastical gowns with floating eyes, lips, and lobsters, woven jackets embellished with astrological symbolism and mirrors inspired by Versailles, plus carrot-shaped buttons with embroidered cauliflowers, Schiaparelli – who also made jewellery and perfumes and wrote extensively – was one of the most inventive people of the 20th century. Born in Rome in 1890, she fled her conservative life for London, New York, and later Paris, where she befriended the surrealists and built a business on a scale hardly any woman had done before.

Elsa Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, V&A South Kensington https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/schiaparelli?srsltid=AfmBOormAlPprtKeObeDZhw4NDLACOBGb9Z-ApA9ZHIsKAio0A3mDHAZ

THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: www.famm.com/en/ www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037
Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Mikaela Carmichael. Music by Ben Wetherfield

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: the esteemed scholar, author, and art historian DIANE APOSTOLOS-CAPPADONA on MARY MAGDALENE!

Professor Emerita of Religious Art & Cultural History and Haub Director of the Catholic Studies Program at Georgetown University, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Art History Program at The George Washington University, Apostolos-Cappadona has written extensively on art history. The author of Mary Magdalene: A Visual History (2023); A Guide to Christian Art (2020); Encyclopedia of Women in Religious Art (1996); Dictionary of Christian Art (1994); and The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century American Art (1995), and “In Search of Mary Magdalene: images and traditions” (2002)... Apostolos-Cappadona is one of the leading scholars in the world on religious art and, in particular, the image of Mary Magdalene.

So - today - unlike in episodes where we deep-dive into a single artist, we will be taking an approach like we've previously done with Marina Warner on Eve, or Natalie Haynes on Medusa, and deep-diving into one of the most popular yet enigmatic figures in art: Mary Magdalene, who has been documented by artists in paint, sculpture, and more, for the past 16 centuries – and counting… and who seems to be portrayed differently every time. After all, Apostolos-Cappadona has referred to her as the most flexible figure in art.

Look at images of her and you’ll see a reader, preacher, follower and witness; crying at the foot of the Cross, washing Christ’s feet or looking up to the heavens – repenting her sins with pearl-like tears – and too often conveniently exposing her chest. Sometimes identified by her jar of ointment or red robe (a contrast to the sanctified Virgin Mary’s blue), she is most popularly known, today, as Christ’s lover or a prostitute, despite no passage in the Bible describing her as such. Yet, the truth is we don’t know who she was, and it seems artists have adopted her in ways that coincide with their needs, and the needs of the time.

THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: https://www.famm.com/en/ https://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037
Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Tory Peters and Nada Smiljanic. Music by Ben Wetherfield

TODAY on the GWA Podcast: choreographer Meryl Tankard on her mentor and friend, the legendary dancer and choreographer: PINA BAUSCH (1940-2009).

Artist, choreographer, visionary, and trailblazer in bringing dance into the modern world, Pina Bausch – one of the most popular names when it comes to artists' influences – was hailed for her raw, haunting, experimental dances, and all-encompassing productions.

Born in 1940 in Germany in the midst of WW2, from an early age Pina took ballet and dance lessons. In the 1950s, a scholarship at Juilliard took her to NYC, a time of great artistic reinvention, and then back to Germany, where she founded Tanztheater Wuppertal and created her groundbreaking choreographies. While the group, at first, faced hostility, the crowd – and the world – soon realized her innovations.

On the magic of dancing with Pina Bausch, Meryl told me:  "Every time we moved it had an emotion behind it ... that's what really shocked everyone at the beginning, because dance had always hidden the pain, hidden the insecurities; we had beautiful hair and costumes. And Pina went, 'let's forget all that. Let's talk about what you are really feeling'. She choreographed vulnerability. She choreographed all our insecurities, and she put music to it. People were just like, wow, that's me. They could see themselves."

I meet with Meryl Tankard on the occasion of her creating a new encounter with Bausch's piece "Kontakthof", with “Kontakthof – Echoes of ‘78”, to be performed at Sadler’s Wells here in London (7–11 April). With nine of the original dancers returning to their roles, the production will integrate projections of archival footage from the original performance, reflecting the passage of time since its creation. And I can't wait to find out more!

THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: https://www.famm.com/en/ https://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic Music by Ben Wetherfield

"Kontakthof – Echoes of '78" https://www.sadlerswells.com/on-tour/current-productions/kontakthof-echoes-of-78/

I am so excited to say that my guests on the GWA Podcast are the esteemed scholar and curator, Katlijne Van der Stighelen, and Royal Acdemy senior curator, Julien Domercq!

Part 1 –  Katlijne Van der Stighelen
Part 2 – Julien Domercq

A professor at KU Leuven until 2024, who has published books on artist Anna Maria van Schurma, Katlijne is also a curator, having, in 1999, along with Mirjam Westen, curated the first ever exhibition on women artists in Belgium and the Netherlands. She is also the curator of Van Dyck l'Europeo: His Journey from Antwerp to Genoa and London', currently on view at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.

But, the reason why we are speaking with Katlijne today is because she has, according to some news outlets, made the greatest artistic discovery of the 21st century - and no, we are not talking about Banksy. It was digging around in a museum basement just over 30 years ago that Katlijne stumbled upon the extraordinary work of Michaelina Wautier, then a totally obscure name not even known to 17th century specialists, active in the mid-1600s and at famed for her colossal paintings of mythological scenes, smaller meticulously rendered, almost breathable garlands of dazzling flowers, and portraits of strong female saints and characters, not unlike her Roman contemporary, Artemisia Gentileschi.

But clearly something got lost upon the way – because until Katlijne’s work, Wautier’s name had been merely a footnote in art history. But now, thanks to decades of her tireless work, she is righting that wrong with Wautier’s first ever exhibition in the UK - following critically acclaimed shows at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, MFA Boston, MAS-Museum in Antwerp, and more.

Part one of this podcast will deep dive into this extraordinary artist – and story – and in the second half, we will walk around the exhibition with Royal Academy senior curator Julien Dormecq to transport you to London, and I can’t wait to find out more.

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THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION:

https://www.famm.com/en/
https://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037

Follow us:
Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel
Sound editing by Tory Peters
Music by Ben Wetherfield