Art History for All

Episode 28: No Foolin’

In this episode we delve into the portrait of Don Juan de Calabazas in the Cleveland Museum of Art! Allyson talks jesters, fools, disability history,…

Episode 27: The Incredible Flying Kris

The podcast returns as sharp as ever with a discussion of an example of a Malaysian blade called a kris! Allyson talks about the transition…

Episode 26: The Case of Ingapirca

Allyson returns refreshed after a quarantine-induced slump to tell you all about Ingapirca, an Inka archaeological site whose function has been obscured by time and…

Episode 25: Aboriginal Glyph

AH4A is back with an examination of Margaret Preston’s 1958 work Aboriginal Glyph, and lots of thoughts about what it means for a white woman…

Episode 24: A Place to Rest

Lots of food for thought in this episode as Allyson discusses a Shona headrest from Zimbabwe in the Met’s collection: how do such objects come…

#podcastblackout

In protest of the epidemic of racism and police brutality that affects Black people in America daily, this episode is part of #podcastblackout, a movement…

Episode 23: Rock Steady

AH4A is back with an episode that ROCKS! Allyson discusses the rock art at Serra da Capivara National Park, Piauí, Brazil, and what its story…

Episode 22: Gilded Gingerbread

An icon of the head of John the Baptist (c. 1680) from Yaroslavl is the focus of this last episode of 2019, prompting a discussion of how Russia has been viewed across hi

Episode 21: A Paintbrush in Her Hand

Indigenous Canadian artist Daphne Odjig's painting Bathed in Sunlight (1983) and the larger story of Odjig's career prompt us to think about Native art and how it is (or

In Focus: Conservation Horror Stories

It's Halloween 2K19 and Allyson is sharing a very specific type of horror story--art conservation horror stories! Listen in, and then share your own tales of artsy mishap

Episode 20: Big Odalisque Energy

There are lots of different types of bodies in the world, but artist Fernando Botero focuses on the rounder kind--in this episode, Allyson tells you about Botero's 1998 p

Episode 19: The Casco and the Yacht

Allyson discusses Filipina artist Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s Girls with Baskets (1966), and how colonialism, class, and global politics affect even the most sentimental of art.

Episode 18: As Much Worker as Woman

Allyson discusses Myra Albert Wiggins's The Lacemaker (1899, Portland Museum of Art), workin' hard for the money, and types of labor that we might not see as labor. This

Episode 17: First Lady to Travel Over Sea

Esther Mahlangu's Untitled, 2008 has simple geometry, but a complex context--Allyson talks about its connections to commerce, soccer, and... BMWs? 

Episode 16: Invasion of the Night

It's a mind-bending episode as Allyson guides you through Roberto Matta's surreal mental landscape, Invasion of the Night (1941), and explores its connections to physics

Episode 15: Compared to Rocks and Mountains

Allyson guides you through the eleventh-century Chinese handscroll painting Summer Mountains, (北宋 傳屈鼎 夏山圖 卷) by little-known painter Qu Ding (屈鼎). © 2019 Allyson Healey…

Episode 14: Happiness and Color

Allyson teaches you all about québécoise painter and stained glass artist Marcelle Ferron, whose windows at the Champ-de-Mars Métro station in Montréal are a unique…

Episode 13: Namatjira’s Creek

In this episode, Allyson goes down under and discusses the life of Albert Namatjira, his watercolor painting Catherine Creek, Northern Territory (circa 1950), and the…

Episode 12: Wrecked

Théodore Géricault’s 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa is part of a larger tangled web of colonialism, incompetence, and disaster. In this episode we get…

Episode 11: Suspended on a Golden Chain

Hagia Sophia has had many lives over the centuries: from church, to mosque, to secular museum, it’s always taken center stage in its city, whether…