Art History for All
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, alw
Allyson Healey
Show overview
Art History for All has been publishing since 2018, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 30 episodes. That works out to roughly 15 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a roughly quarterly cadence.
Episodes typically run twenty to thirty-five minutes — most land between 27 min and 32 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-US-language Arts show.
The catalogue appears to be on hiatus or wound down — the most recent episode landed 4.5 years ago, with no new episodes in over a year. The busiest year was 2019, with 12 episodes published. Published by Allyson Healey.
From the publisher
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)
Latest Episodes
View all 30 episodesEpisode 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 history.
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.
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!
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."
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 one's for you, needleworkers!
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 and psychology.
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…