Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Airwave Media
Airwave Media
  • 4.7 (147)
  • Visual Arts
  • Updated Weekly

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, or trying to learn a few facts so you can sound smart at fashionable dinner parties, we’ve got you covered with episodes coming every Monday.

  1. 6d ago

    TLDR Anish Kapoor | Cloud Gate (The Bean)

    Sir Anish Kapoor is an internationally acclaimed British-Indian sculptor celebrated for his pioneering investigations into scale, void, and perceptual depth. Emerging in the early 1980s as part of the New British Sculpture movement, Kapoor initially gained renown for forms coated in intense, unbound raw pigments, a technique influenced by traditional Hindu ritual powders, before expanding into colossal public installations using materials such as reflective stainless steel, polished stone, and light-absorbing Vantablack. His decorated career includes major honors such as the 1991 Turner Prize, a 2013 knighthood for services to the visual arts, and the 2017 Genesis Prize, from which he directed the full $1 million award toward humanitarian organizations aiding Syrian and Rohingya refugees. Among his most iconic monumental installations is Cloud Gate, commonly known as "The Bean," situated in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Inspired by the fluid properties of liquid mercury, the elliptical structure measures 33 feet high, 42 feet wide, and 66 feet long, weighing approximately 110 tons. Engineered in collaboration with Performance Structures, Inc. and Arup, the exterior comprises 168 stainless steel plates welded together and polished to an entirely seamless, mirror-like finish that reflects the Chicago skyline and surrounding park. Featuring a 12-foot concave underbelly known as the omphalos, Cloud Gate eliminates traditional pedestals to create an interactive civic landmark that draws millions of visitors each year. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    TLDR Anish Kapoor | Cloud Gate (The Bean)

  2. Sep 21

    TLDR Friedensreich Hundertwasser

    Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) was an Austrian visual artist, architect, and environmental philosopher renowned for his vibrant, unconventional aesthetic and radical ecological convictions. Rejecting the rigid straight lines and functional geometric grids of modernist architecture, Hundertwasser championed organic forms, irregular contours, spirals, and vivid mineral pigments. His artistic worldview prompted him to adopt names reflecting his ideals including “Regentag” (Rainy Day) and “Dunkelbunt” (Dark-Multicolored) and led him to advocate for architectural concepts such as the "window right," which granted tenants the autonomy to decorate outer walls, and the integration of dry composting toilets to restore natural ecological cycles. A pioneer of biophilic design, Hundertwasser merged urban development with the natural world through features like undulating forest-floor interiors, soil-covered green rooftops, and “tree tenants” that grew through exterior openings. These principles culminated in landmark works such as the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, a municipal apartment complex created alongside architect Peter Pelikan and completed in 1985. Defined by its asymmetrical color-blocked facade, whimsical ceramic mosaics, gilded onion domes, and over 250 integrated trees and shrubs, the complex serves as an enduring model of low-cost public housing harmonized with living nature. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    TLDR Friedensreich Hundertwasser

  3. Sep 14

    Ettore Sottsass | Carlton & Memphis Design

    Ettore Sottsass was an Italian architect and designer who transformed the design landscape of the late 20th century by challenging the rigid functionalism of modernist architecture. Born in Austria and trained in Turin, Sottsass cultivated a philosophy centered on human joy and playful expression, values cemented during his time as a prisoner of war in World War II. After gaining international acclaim for iconic industrial works like the bright red Olivetti Valentine typewriter, he grew disillusioned with corporate minimalism. In December 1980, Sottsass gathered a collective of young international designers in Milan to establish the Memphis Group, a radical movement that debuted in 1981 and defined 1980s postmodern aesthetics through electric neon colors, asymmetric geometry, and whimsical laminates. A definitive example of this design philosophy is Sottsass’s 1981 Carlton bookcase, a monumental room divider created for the inaugural Memphis Milano exhibition. Constructed from medium-density fiberboard clad in vibrant plastic laminates, the piece playfully subverts conventional luxury furniture by utilizing synthetic materials and slanted shelves that embrace visual chaos over utilitarian storage. Featuring an anthropomorphic, totem-like silhouette set above a signature squiggled "Bacterio" pattern base, the Carlton merges ancient ceremonial forms with contemporary pop culture. Sottsass's boundary-pushing creations proved that the primary function of design extends beyond mere utility, serving instead to inject emotion, humor, and vitality into daily life. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Ettore Sottsass | Carlton & Memphis Design

  4. Sep 7

    Author Interview CJ Denton | La Pittura

    My guest this week is CJ Denton, author of a new novel called La Pittura. While his work is historical fiction, in preparation for the book, he conducted extensive research into the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most celebrated painters of the Italian Baroque era. We discussed her life and work particularly focusing on Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura), painted during her period in London around 1638–1639. She developed exceptional technical skill from an early age, learning the demanding craft of grinding raw pigments, sizing canvases, and mastering perspective in an era that severely limited professional opportunities for women. While discussions often fixate on her 1612 trial following her assault by Agostino Tassi, Gentileschi’s artistic brilliance and historical significance are far greater than that one ugly chapter. She navigated the practical realities of a working professional artist in 17th-century Florence and Naples, managing contracts, courting powerful noble patrons like the Medici, maintaining correspondence with intellectual luminaries like Galileo Galilei, and eventually operating her own independent studio. Find CJ Denton and La Pittura online: Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/0iYzGRsRFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1HhUNc9APz/?mibextid=wwXIfr Author page: https://andrewsparke.com/our-authors/c-j-denton/ Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Author Interview CJ Denton | La Pittura

  5. Sep 3 ·  Bonus

    Author Interview: Ryan T. Pozzi | The Mess that Made Them

    Today I have a bonus episode in the feed. I originally planned to release my interview with Ryan T. Pozzi on Monday, but due to technical difficulties, I had to flip things around. Today, his new book, The Mess that Made Them, is hitting stores. The book focuses on the difficult circumstances that shaped a number of different artists. In our conversation, we focused primarily on Suzanne Valadon. French artist Suzanne Valadon led a life marked by radical reinvention, rising from poverty and unconventional beginnings to become a trailblazing figure in modern art. Born Marie-Clémentine Valadon in the late 19th century, she initially worked as a circus acrobat before an injury ended her performance career. She subsequently transitioned to modeling in the vibrant bohemian center of Montmartre, posing for renowned painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Edgar Degas. Observing these artists closely while developing her own visual voice, Valadon taught herself to paint, mastering technical composition and earning serious recognition across Parisian art circles as an independent creative force. Valadon’s distinct visual style challenged traditional academic norms, most notably in celebrated works like The Blue Room (1923). Rather than adhering to the passive, idealized female nudes favored by the male gaze of the era, she portrayed everyday modern women with psychological depth, agency, and grounded realism. In The Blue Room, a clothed woman lounges casually in striped pajamas with books at her feet and a cigarette in hand, reclaiming the classic reclining figure motif. Through rich color palettes, expressive brushwork, and unflinching character studies, Valadon permanently disrupted classical conventions and cemented a vital, enduring legacy in art history. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Author Interview: Ryan T. Pozzi | The Mess that Made Them

  6. Aug 31

    TLDR Eugène Delacroix | Liberty Leading the People

    Eugène Delacroix stands as one of the defining figures of 19th-century French art and the leading pioneer of the Romantic movement. Rejecting the rigid, line-driven academic standards of Neoclassicism championed by contemporaries like Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Delacroix embraced raw emotion, expressive brushwork, and radiant color inspired by Peter Paul Rubens. From his controversial Paris Salon debut with The Barque of Dante (1822) and his role as a model for Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, to his transformative 1832 journey across Morocco and Algeria and his dramatic lithographic illustrations for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Delacroix consistently pushed the boundaries of visual expression. His most celebrated masterpiece, Liberty Leading the People (1830), commemorates the July Revolution that toppled King Charles X in favor of Louis-Philippe. Spanning over eight feet high and nearly eleven feet wide, the monumental canvas employs a classical pyramidal composition to organize a turbulent scene of urban revolt. At its center stands Marianne, the allegorical personification of Liberty, wearing a Phrygian cap and leading fighters across diverse social classes over a barricade of fallen bodies. Blending historical reality with powerful allegory, the painting remains an enduring global symbol of revolution, human freedom, and social justice housed in the permanent collection of the Musée du Louvre. Liberty Leading the People is one of the 250 artworks required for AP Art History. To learn more about other works from the curriculum, check out my AP Art History Cram Session playlist on Spotify. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    TLDR Eugène Delacroix | Liberty Leading the People

  7. Aug 24

    Joseph Ducreux | Self-Portrait of the Artist in the Guise of a Mocker

    Joseph Ducreux (1735–1802) was an innovative French portrait painter known for defying the rigid conventions of 18th-century academic art. After training under masters such as Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Ducreux gained acclaim for his pastel work, miniatures, and precise observational likenesses. His talent earned him royal commissions, including a diplomatic assignment to Vienna to paint a portrait of Marie Antoinette prior to her marriage to Louis XVI. Despite receiving royal patronage, Ducreux was never admitted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, an outsider status that allowed him greater artistic freedom to explore human emotion and physiognomy outside the strict boundaries of traditional academic portraiture. During the social and political upheaval of the French Revolution, Ducreux produced a series of unconventional, theatrical self-portraits that broke the fourth wall by capturing exaggerated expressions such as yawning, stretching, and laughing. His most famous work, Self-Portrait of the Artist in the Guise of a Mocker (1793), depicts the painter grinning and pointing directly at the viewer, directly challenging the stoic, idealized norms of late 18th-century art. Aided by fellow painter Jacques-Louis David during the Reign of Terror, Ducreux navigated turbulent political shifts and continued exhibiting his expressive work until his death in 1802. In modern popular culture, Ducreux’s mocking self-portrait found a viral second life as an internet meme, pairing his 18th-century smug pose with verbose, archaic translations of contemporary hip-hop and pop lyrics. ⁠Listen Ad-Free on Patreon. ⁠ For just $3 per month, you can get ad-free versions of Fun Facts Daily, Who ARTed and Art Smart. Head over to ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/FunFactsDailyPod⁠ if you are interested. Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Joseph Ducreux | Self-Portrait of the Artist in the Guise of a Mocker

  8. Aug 17

    Fernand Léger | Composition in Blue

    Fernand Léger was a pioneering French modernist painter whose foundational training as an architectural draftsman profoundly shaped his structured, geometric approach to art. After absorbing the influence of Paul Cézanne and collaborating among avant-garde circles in Paris, Léger developed a distinct variation of Cubism characterized by cylindrical, tubular forms, a style contemporary critics dubbed "Tubism." His military service in World War I, where he survived a gas attack, deepened his fascination with the industrial beauty of modern machinery and inspired his goal to create art accessible to working-class audiences. This perspective catalyzed his "Mechanical Period" during the 1920s, a phase marked by vibrant, machine-like compositions and urban motifs that celebrated industrial progress. Léger's 1921–1927 painting Composition in Blue, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, exemplifies this mechanical aesthetic and demonstrates rigorous principles of design. Utilizing a limited monochromatic blue palette, hard-edged geometry, and carefully balanced line weights, the piece synthesizes three-dimensional volumetric shapes with flat planes. Beneath its paint layers, conservation analysis reveals a structured grid system that Léger used to systematically map the canvas. By translating machine components into universal abstract harmonies, Léger transformed industrial forms into a lasting modern aesthetic. ⁠Listen Ad-Free on Patreon. ⁠ For just $3 per month, you can get ad-free versions of Fun Facts Daily, Who ARTed and Art Smart. Head over to ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cw/FunFactsDailyPod⁠ if you are interested. Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    Fernand Léger | Composition in Blue
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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, or trying to learn a few facts so you can sound smart at fashionable dinner parties, we’ve got you covered with episodes coming every Monday.

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