Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Who Arted is art history and art education for everyone. While most art history podcasts focus on the traditional "fine art" we see in museums around the world, Who ARTed celebrates art in all of its forms and in terms anyone can understand. Each episode tells the story of a different artist and artwork including the traditional big names like Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol along with lesser-known artists working in such diverse media as video game design, dance, the culinary arts, and more. Who Arted is written and produced by an art teacher with the goal of creating a classroom resource that makes art history fun and accessible to everyone. Whether you are cramming for your AP Art History exam, trying to learn a few facts so you can sound smart at fashionable dinner parties, or just looking to hear something with a more positive tone, we’ve got you covered with episodes every Monday and Friday.

Episodes

Mariko Mori | Pure Land

May 19, 2025 • 9 mins
Mariko Mori, born in Tokyo in 1967, is a Japanese artist whose work blends traditional Buddhist iconography with futuristic digital art. With a background influenced by her father's inventiveness and her mother's art history knowledge, Mori initially studied fashion design before pursuing visual arts in London and New York. Her early pieces featured herself in elaborate costumes, exploring identity and technology. Mori's notable wo...
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Sandro Botticelli | The Birth of Venus (encore)

May 16, 2025 • 20 mins
Sandro Botticelli, born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, was a renowned Florentine painter during the Renaissance. By the 1470s, Botticelli established his own workshop and gained recognition for his unique style. He received commissions from wealthy patrons, including the powerful Medici family. For the Medici, Botticelli painted portraits and created allegorical and mythological works that showcased his mastery of line, c...
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The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland⁠ 

May 12, 2025 • 41 mins
My guest this week is Michelle Young, author of The Art Spy. During WWII, French museum curator Rose Valland risked her life to sabotage the Nazi art theft machine, secretly documenting their plunder and saving countless masterpieces. The book is thoroughly researched to not only verify the facts of Valland's work preserving art, but also to gain insights into Valland as a human being. In our interview, Young shared some of her ins...
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The Ultimate Lego House (encore)

May 9, 2025 • 5 mins
In 2009, a television presenter from the BBC, a guy by the name of James May, gathered about 2,000 volunteers and approximately 3.2 million bricks donated by LEGO to create a two-story house out of Legos. He created this for a series called James May's Toy Stories. The house even went so far as it had working plumbing, like it had a working shower and toilet all made of LEGO. May actually spent the night in his LEGO house and he ...
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Jessica Poundstone | Museum of Dogs

May 5, 2025 • 48 mins
Jessica Poundstone is the author of Museum of Dogs: a Romp through Art History for Dog People. As the name suggests, it is a light and fun look at dogs as portrayed by various artists throughout time and across cultures. In this episode, we discussed dogs in art history and mentioned several artists including Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Berthe Morisot, and Diego Velázquez. In the second segment...
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Marc Chagall | I and the Village

May 2, 2025 • 12 mins
Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal, 1887-1985) was a prominent Russian-French modern artist whose life spanned nearly a century of dramatic historical change. Originating from a Hasidic Jewish community near Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), Chagall pursued art studies in St. Petersburg before immersing himself in the Paris art scene from 1911-1914. There, he absorbed influences from Cubism and Fauvism, blending them with his un...
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Introducing Fun Facts Daily

April 28, 2025 • 33 mins
Fun Facts Daily is a new podcast I have been working on for a bit. It is exactly what the name suggests. Every Monday through Friday, on Fun Facts Daily, I’ll be sharing five fun facts, a word of the day and practical tips all related to a single topic in around 10-15 minutes.  I’ll still be bringing you episodes of Who ARTed on Mondays and Fridays, but I wanted to create another show because there’s a lot of amazing stuff to lear...
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The Codex Borgia

April 25, 2025 • 10 mins
The Codex Borgia is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican manuscript, a 36-foot folded document made of animal hide, dating from the 13th to early 16th centuries. Created by Indigenous peoples, likely in central Mexico, it serves as a religious and divinatory almanac used by priests. Filled with intricate depictions of deities like Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, and Tlaloc, it illustrates the 260-day tonalpohualli ritual calendar. Part of the ...
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Walter De Maria | The Lightning Field

April 21, 2025 • 43 mins
Walter De Maria (1935-2013) was a pivotal figure in Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Land Art, known for large-scale environmental installations. His significant works include The New York Earth Room and The Lightning Field. The Lightning Field, commissioned by the Dia Art Foundation and completed in 1977 in Catron County, New Mexico, comprises 400 stainless steel poles arranged in a precise grid, designed to interact with light and...
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Elaine de Kooning | Portrait of John F. Kennedy

April 18, 2025 • 15 mins
Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) was a vital figure in 20th-century American art. She was a renowned Abstract Expressionist painter, portraitist, and writer. Elaine de Kooning's 1963 portrait of John F. Kennedy, now at the National Portrait Gallery, is a significant work reflecting her Abstract Expressionist style applied to portraiture. Commissioned by the Truman Library, the painting captures Kennedy's dynamic energy and charisma th...
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Willem de Kooning | Woman, I

April 14, 2025 • 17 mins
Willem de Kooning, a Dutch-American Abstract Expressionist painter, was born in Rotterdam in 1904. He stowed away on a freighter in 1926, eventually settling in New York City. De Kooning's early work transitioned from figurative studies to abstraction, though he never fully abandoned the figure, famously stating, "Flesh was the reason oil paint was invented." He gained recognition for his black-and-white abstract paintings and marr...
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Was Abstract Expressionism a CIA Psyop?

April 11, 2025 • 11 mins
The CIA secretly leveraged Abstract Expressionism, particularly the art of Jackson Pollock, during the Cold War. This wasn't about controlling artists but using their work as a symbol of American freedom and individualism against Soviet Socialist Realism. Through the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), the CIA funded major art exhibitions like "The New American Painting" and collaborated with institutions like the Museum of Modern...
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Tembe Denton-Hurst | Fresh Sets: Contemporary Nail Art from Around the World

April 7, 2025 • 45 mins
Tembe Denton-Hurst (@tembae) is a beauty and culture writer at New York magazine and the author of Homebodies. Her newest book Fresh Sets: Contemporary Nail Art from Around the World travels the world to put today’s most inspired nail art at your fingertips. It features profiles of 35 professionals who are carving out a name for themselves on the streets of cities like New York, LA, Vancouver, London, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Seoul, ...
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Announcing the 2025 Arts Madness Tournament Winner

April 6, 2025 • 9 mins
Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Arts Madness Tournament. After 6 weeks and thousands of votes, we have narrowed the field from 64 down to 1 ultimate artist. Listen for fun facts about our two final artists, Katsushika Hokusai and Maurizio Cattelan, and find out who came out on top in our final round. Check out my other podcasts  Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If y...
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Joan Miró | The Farm

April 4, 2025 • 10 mins
Joan Miró, a renowned Spanish painter, sculptor, and ceramicist, was born in Barcelona on April 20, 1893. Initially steered towards business, Miró's true passion was art. He studied at Barcelona's La Llotja School of Fine Arts and later the Escola d'Art. A period of illness led him to Mont-roig del Camp, a pivotal experience that solidified his commitment to painting and connection to nature. Miró absorbed influences from Fauvism a...
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Hokusai & Ukiyo-e | The Floating World

March 31, 2025 • 64 mins
I was thrilled to interview Justin Witte, curator at the Cleave Carney Museum of Art. This summer, the Cleave Carney Museum of Art will be hosting Hokusai & Ukiyo-e | The Floating World. This is will be the first time this collection of works has come to the United States. They will be exhibiting not only prints, but also hand painted pieces from Edo, Japan. The collection features works by Hokusai, Hiroshige and other great artist...
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Lee Krasner | Little Images

March 28, 2025 • 13 mins
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 experimented with abstraction, contributing ...
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Joan Fernandez | Saving Vincent, A Novel of Jo van Gogh

March 24, 2025 • 61 mins
Today, Vincent van Gogh is one of the most beloved and widely celebrated artists, but in his lifetime, he had extremely limited commercial success. When Vincent died and his brother Theo unexpectedly passed shortly later, the widow Jo van Gogh was left with a young child to raise and no apparent means to support herself. She inherited a collection of Vincent van Gogh's paintings and drawings, but most considered them to be worthles...
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The Erased Masterpiece - Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning

March 21, 2025 • 10 mins
A young, up-and-coming Robert Rauschenberg knocked on the door of Willem de Kooning, one of the biggest stars of the art world in his day. Rauschenberg had a big ask. He didn't want advice or help in the traditional sense. He wanted de Kooning to give him a drawing so he could erase it. After an uncomfortable conversation, de Kooning agreed. He looked through his portfolios and picked out a drawing. It was not easy. Rauschenberg sp...
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Guoying Stacy Zhang | Decoding Buddhist Art

March 17, 2025 • 60 mins
Guoying Stacy Zhang is an art historian and advisor specializing in Buddhist art. She previously served as the associate curator of the Tsz Shan Monastery Buddhist Art Museum and she has advised numerous private collectors on their acquisitions. Her latest work focuses on the intersection of art, spirituality, and technology. In our conversation, she discussed the history of Buddhism, some of themes and motifs in artwork, and how w...
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