From art lovers to art haters to art-is-just-okay-ers, Art History for All aims to get all kinds of people thinking about art and what it means to them. Each episode, Allyson Healey tackles a single work of art and its history and larger significance, always asking the question: so what? Art History for All takes you beyond the art historical canon and helps you find the way in which art speaks to you (even if it's never spoken to you before).
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,…
11/2/2021 • 35 minutes, 59 seconds
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…
8/9/2021 • 32 minutes, 35 seconds
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…
2/22/2021 • 26 minutes, 25 seconds
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…
8/31/2020 • 24 minutes, 30 seconds
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…
6/8/2020 • 26 minutes, 18 seconds
#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…
6/1/2020 • 2 minutes, 24 seconds
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…
3/9/2020 • 24 minutes, 5 seconds
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 history.
12/24/2019 • 27 minutes
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 isn't) included in the mainstream contemporary art world.
11/25/2019 • 29 minutes, 23 seconds
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 mishaps by emailing allysonh[at]arthistoryforall.com!
10/31/2019 • 14 minutes, 8 seconds
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 painting L'Odalisque, and talks about how it relates to body image and ideas of the "other."
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!
8/26/2019 • 30 minutes, 9 seconds
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?
6/25/2019 • 29 minutes, 38 seconds
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 and psychology.
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…
3/26/2019 • 25 minutes, 26 seconds
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…
2/28/2019 • 29 minutes, 2 seconds
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…
1/29/2019 • 31 minutes, 58 seconds
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…
12/24/2018 • 32 minutes, 16 seconds
Episode 10: A Sketch of Native American History
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…
11/26/2018 • 31 minutes, 32 seconds
Episode 9: Fiends, Frankenstein, and Fuseli
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…
10/29/2018 • 34 minutes, 41 seconds
Episode 8: In Memory of Malcolm
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…
9/24/2018 • 30 minutes, 8 seconds
Episode 7: Painting of Interest
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…
8/27/2018 • 30 minutes, 40 seconds
Episode 6: Fly Like An Eagle
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,…
7/30/2018 • 31 minutes, 18 seconds
Episode 5: Hip to Be Square
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…
6/21/2018 • 32 minutes, 55 seconds
Episode 4: Do the Wave
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…
5/19/2018 • 30 minutes, 28 seconds
Episode 3: In Love with the Rococo
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…
4/15/2018 • 31 minutes, 47 seconds
Episode 2: Why Oh Wiley
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…
3/14/2018 • 31 minutes, 23 seconds
Episode 1: For the Love of Mona Lisa
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…
