Art History for All

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 history.

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 isn't) included in the mainstream contemporary art world.

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 mishaps by emailing allysonh[at]arthistoryforall.com!

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 painting L'Odalisque, and talks about how it relates to body image and ideas of the "other."

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. ©…

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 one's for you, needleworkers!

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

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 and psychology.

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

This episode gets a bit obscure and focuses on a single woodcut from David Cusick’s 1828 book Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations, the…

We’re getting spooky in this episode and looking at Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting The Nightmare, by far one of the eeriest paintings in Western art…

This episode is a bit more multidimensional, mainly because we’re talking about a sculpture! Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Malcolm X #3 is titled in memory of Malcolm X, but…

The game is afoot as we investigate the theft of Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert–or, more accurately, investigate how that theft affects how we look at the…

Get your shutter fingers ready, because in this episode we’re talking about a photograph! Specifically, Laura Aguilar’s Three Eagles Flying (1990). **This podcast contains discussions of lynching,…

Brace yourselves, listeners, because in this episode Allyson gets abstract and discusses Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, often hailed as the end of traditional painting and the…

This episode we dip our toe into the Asian art pool and talk about Hokusai’s Great Wave, its origins, and the many many transformations it has undergone…

In a very self-indulgent episode, Allyson talks about her favorite period in art history, and one of her favorite artists: Rosalba Carriera, who did a…

In this episode, Allyson gets topical and talks about a Kehinde Wiley painting–but maybe not the one you think! You can find a transcript of…

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Art History for All! In this episode, Allyson tells you all about Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the impact…