Listeners! We're still cooking up Part 2 of our Hieronymus Bosch x Keith Haring series, BUTT in the meantime we've got something else to tide you over: a little jaunt through art history and we cannot stress this enough, it’s so much . . . hotter than you'd expect.
Joining us is Jack Shoulder — historian, educator, and co-author of Museum Bums — to spill the tea on his new book Museum Hotties or Hotties in Art (depending on which side of the pond you’re on). Yes, that's really what it's called.
And this time around it's not just bums (though, you know, they're in there). We're talking artists, muses, myths, and masterpieces that have been turning heads for literal centuries.
Museum Hotties features some old faves like David Hockney’s “Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool” (1966), Paul Cadmus’ “Jerry” (1931), Giovanni Battista Moroni’s “The Tailor” (c.1575) — plus new ones we didn't see coming, like Sylvia Sleigh’s “Paul Rosano Reclining” (1974) and Beryl Cook’s “Ladies’ Night” (1981).
Tune in to hear why the works still in Hotties absolutely still hit today, and how we – unexpectedly – ended up interrogating our own gazes (we call it “interro-gazing”)!
Topics include Olly Mur’s viral transformation, what is a cuddly bod?, sexy Jesuses getting sexier (not a good thing!), working men aura, neon nipple visibility, the throuple PaJaMa Collective, uncovering queer art history and so much more!
Keith Haring X Hieronymus Bosch | "Altarpiece / Life of Christ" X "The Garden of Earthly Delights" | Part One
lundi 31 août 2026 • Durée 01:31:27
WeReee bAcK ~~~ diving into not one but TWO monumental works by TWO monumental artists—Hieronymus Bosch's enigmatic triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1490-1510) and Keith Haring's stunning and heartbreaking final work "Altarpiece / The Life of Christ" (1990).
Believe it or not, there are parallels between these two artists who lived nearly half a millennia apart, they touch on remarkably similar themes about our experience as, you know - humans —albeit with completely different conclusions.
The mysterious Hieronymus Bosch — born, lived, and died in 's-Hertogenbosch, a Catholic hub in the Netherlands. Records of his life are so scant he's become one of art history's most fascinating figures which has led to some speculation that he was part of a clandestine religious nudist colony, the Adamites.
We touch on his early work "Adoration of the Magi" (c.1475) featuring an unusual teal blue palette and some unexpectedly hilarious details (including an angel getting its wings stuck in a tower!).
We introduce Keith Haring's artist journey beginning from his small hometown of Kutztown, PA, his "Jesus Freak" teen years and how The Free Hollywood Newspaper left a lasting impression, and finally onto NYC's flourishing art scene of the 1980s. In the subways, he would crank out an estimated 10,000 subway drawings between 1980-1985 and it's also where he would first encounter his future collaborator Angel Ortiz’s graffiti work.
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Petra Mathers - Death of an Artist
mardi 25 août 2026 • Durée 41:53
Hello Ear Buddies
We should be releasing Hieronymus Bosch X Keith Haring later this week (fingers crossed) - until then please enjoy this special feed drop:
When Alice Gregory and Leon Neyfakh started building a library for their infant daughter, they stumbled across a name in an obituary that Alice recognized from her own childhood: celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers. Petra had died by suicide alongside her husband, Michael Mathers. Both were in their late 70s, seemingly happy and healthy.
The details of Petra and Michael’s deaths pulled Alice and Leon down a rabbit hole that neither were expecting—a plan many years in the making, dozens of letters mailed out across the country, friends and family caught between betrayal and envy, and a community grappling with their own feelings around aging and death.
Death of an Artist drops weekly on Tuesdays starting August 25. Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of Death of an Artist by subscribing to Pushkin+. Subscribers also get bonus episodes, exclusive binges, full audiobooks, and early ad-free listening for all Pushkin shows.
Listeners, today we are FINALLY diving into Leonora Carrington’s epic mural “The Magical World of the Maya” or “El mundo mágico de los mayas” made with casein, tempera on panel 1963-64.
Picking up from Part 1, we rejoin LC after several visits to Chiapas to observe and learn from the Tzoztil, Teztil and Lacandon in Chiapas, reading and studying the Popol Vuh, she begins incorporating her own experience.
Among the places she visited in Chiapas that appear in the mural are the cemetery in Romerillo, with its giant, majestic blue-green crosses; the syncretistic church of San Juan Chamula, and the former monastery of Santo Domingo in San Cristobal de las Casas.
We get deep into how our Hyena Queen was so expertly able to weave together all of these influences using her unique painting technique made of those iconic tiny brushmarks and washy layers to depict all of these Mayan gods and mythical creatures.
We also discuss important events that occurred during and soon after the completion of the mural including the sudden death of Remedios Varo and Jose Horna, the beginning of Mexico’s Dirty War inspiring LC’s political works “Leptidoptera” (1968), “Operation Wednesday” (1969) and the poster for the women’s feminist movement in Mexico, “Mujeres Conciencia” (1972).
Topics include: Turtle-Earthers, so much corn (not KoЯn), Carl(os) Sagán, Chac’s tamales, kiterangs, animorphing goddesses, sacred hummingbirds, jungle love stew, Mayan crosses, Xibalba orgies, and so much more!
FEATURED MUSIC:
Chris Zabriskie - 'Everybody's Got Problems That Aren't Mine' from the album 'Thoughtless'
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Leonora Carrington - The Magical World of the Maya | pt. 1
Today we are revisiting our fav Hyena Queen LEONORA CARRINGTON: this time covering her epic mural “The Magical World of the Maya” or “El mundo mágico de los mayas” from casein, tempera on panel 1963-64.
This 14ft x 7ft beaut of a work features a slice of Mayan life including the sky, earth and underworld all filled with mysterious scenes, cosmological events, and mythical creatures - brought to us through Leonora’s lens using those tiny brushmarks and washy layers.
We first covered her work, the small 1945 painting “The House Opposite” in our Las Tres Witches episodes featuring her witchy besties Surrealist artists Remedios Varo and Kati Horna and we left off as she settled into her new home in Mexico City.
Through Kati Horna, LC would meet and fall in love with and marries also newly immigrated Hungarian photographer and concentration camp survivor, Emerico “Chiki” Weisz. She captures this new era in her 1944 painting “Chiki Your Country”, an autobiographical, fantastical and wonderfully weird landscape - a work that foreshadows her approach to the Mayan mural.
Fast forward 20 yearish later: it’s 1963, Surrealism has faded and LC is part of a new generation of artists called the Breakaway Generation (Generación de la Ruptura) for breaking away from Muralism. And she landed a commission to paint “The Magical World of the Maya” for the grand opening of the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park.
To prepare, LC found herself embarking on a wild ride (literally and figuratively) to meet with the Maya of Chiapas including the Tzoztil, Teztil and Lacandon.
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37: Miguel Covarrubias & Rosa Rolanda with Veka Duncan
jeudi 13 novembre 2025 • Durée 01:26:05
This week we are zooming out . . . wayyy out . . . further . . .further . . .Okay now zoom innnn. . . . to a world without borders through the eyes of artist, illustrator, set-designer, archeologist, and art historian Miguel Covarrubias. And to help us out on this journey, the amazing Veka Duncan @vekaduncan has joined us.
Miguel aka El Chamaco, is the other half of that Mexican artist power couple, not named Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, from our last episode with Rosa Rolanda: https://youtu.be/w-CVdxpnwBc
Some may know him from his Harlem Renaissance series, his Broadway set designs, his groundbreaking book on Bali, or even his covers for Vanity Fair and/or The New Yorker.
You Texans may know his monumental 1954 glass mosaic mural, "Genesis, the Gift of Life," outside of the Dallas Museum of Art where Miguel reinterprets the story of genesis through a Mesoamerican and Native-American symbols and mythologies.
Miguel’s work touched on so many subjects; traveling to so many continents, really observing and getting to know the people, their culture and surrounding environments.
His groundbreaking archaeological research was revered, his caricatured cultural icons duked it out in his “Impossible Interviews” series, he painted massive murals that highlight all of the people, flora, and fauna that make up our home planet, always blending humor, science, and a real love for everything that makes us human.
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36: Rosa Rolanda - from Broadway Dancer to Surrealist
mardi 28 octobre 2025 • Durée 01:02:18
We are back, we are wide-eyed, almost Bratz Dolls eyed (!) and South of the Border 🇲🇽
This time diving into the work of Rosa Rolanda, who metamorphosis-ized 🦋 from a famous Broadway dancer into a Surrealist late in life.
Along the way she crossed paths with figures like Man Ray. It's likely she even learned the photogram process from him, which she then made uniquely her own. Her photograms feel like intimate journal doodles crossed with the raw energy of punk zines from the early '90s.
She also met her soon-to-be partner and collaborator, the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias—also known as 'El Chamaco.'
Together, they became Mexico's first artistic power couple, predating even Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Their groundbreaking work, the book "Island of Bali," was the first comprehensive account of Balinese culture for the Western world, detailing its art, music, dance, and rituals.
But it's her paintings that have this incredible, haunting feeling of anemoia—a nostalgia for a time you've never known. This gives them a distinct '90s or early 2000s vibe. On the surface, they seem simple and illustrative, but on a second, third, or even fourth look, you start to peel back all these incredible visual and narrative layers."
Topics include:
Bratz Dolls and Crazy Town
Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
the Museo de Arte Moderno
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Smart and Final yellow
Marion Morgan’s Morgan Dancers
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35: Finding YouTopia - ArtCurious' Jennifer Dasal on The American Girls Club of Paris
mardi 23 septembre 2025 • Durée 54:12
LISTENERS we’re back with maybe a little glimmer of hope?
“Impossible” you say! Eye Rolls you do!
But after our conversation with Jennifer Dasal of the ArtCurious podcast, we had to ask ourselves, could a historical sanctuary for artists offer a vision for today's creators?
In her new book, The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris," Dasal uncovers the story of The American Girls Club of Paris. This remarkable institution provided hundreds of expatriate American women artists with housing, tea gardens, libraries, and—most importantly—dedicated studio and exhibition space.
Far from home and full of ambition, artists like Florence Lundberg, Anne Goldthwaite, Alice Morgan Wright, and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller found refuge and community in this unique "u-topia" (or as we like to call it, a "YOU-topia").
Building Your Modern Creative Community
With resources for artists often scarce, the story of The Club is more vital than ever. It reminds us of the importance of nurturing our creative practices and finding ways to support each other.
Whether it's a physical space or a dedicated online community, we must be generous with our time and energy to foster collective creativity. This episode explores how to carve out these personal utopias, drawing parallels to diverse examples like Mexican chinampas (floating gardens), Kristin Ghodsee’s "Everyday Utopia," and… the…. 00s UK rap group The Streets.
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34: The Greatest Art Heist That Never Was ➫ Maria Lani: The Woman With Fifty Faces ➫ w/ Jonathan Lackman & Zachary J Pinson
When the dazzling German actress Maria Lani arrived in Paris in the late 1920s, her presence set the art world abuzz. She quickly recruited over fifty artists—including Pierre Bonnard, Jean Cocteau, Marc Chagall, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso (he said no), Man Ray, Georges-Henri Rouault, Fernand Léger, and Suzanne Valadon—to depict her in paintings, photographs, and sculptures for an upcoming film.
There was just one problem: "Maria Lani" was a construct. She wasn’t a famous actress—she wasn’t even "Maria Lani." So what did she plan to do with all these artworks?
When Maria Lani disappeared along with the pieces, rumors spread that she had stolen the works and sold them to unsuspecting collectors in the United States. Was this the art heist of the century? Or was something else going on?
We sit down with Author and Illustrator - Jonathan Lackman and Zachary J. Pinson - to uncover the truth—and discuss The Woman with Fifty Faces, a stunning new graphic novel from Fantagraphics that explores the enigmatic life of this maligned figure.
33: Mary Cassatt's LOST mural ➩ ➪ A reimagining of Eve |||| special guest Klaire Lockheart
jeudi 31 juillet 2025 • Durée 01:38:26
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VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/0_9up1-1b2U
Mary Cassatt, known for her paintings of women and babies (then and now), made a surprising move to accept a mural commission for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.
This gig was a big deal, especially if you were a younger artist- it could be a career-making move. But when Mary, decades into her own art career, first received the invitation . . .
well, here’s what she had to say:
“When the committee offered it to me to do, at first I was horrified, but gradually I began to think it would be great fun to do something I had never done before and as the bare idea of such a thing put (Cassatt's best frenemy) Degas into a rage and he did not spare every criticism he could think of, I got my spirit up and said I would not give up the idea for anything.”
So . . . maybe a little spite inspired this mural?
Spite and...a surprising reimagining of the story of Eve.
Unfortunately, this mural has been lost to the sands of time...and we're (maybe, foolishly) diving in with the only surviving grainy black and white photos to guide us.
Special thanks to Klaire Lockheart! https://www.instagram.com/klairelockheart
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All of this is happening during the beginning of the Reagan era which was fueled by Southern Conservatives backlash to increasing LGBTQ+ visibility, the rise of "Christian" televangelists, and the growing, deathly AIDS crisis.
In Part 2, we will focus on the works themselves so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it!!
MUSIC:
"Hieronymus Bosch Butt Music from Hell" - commissioned from Betta Music Pro (who also remixed our theme song!)
Her guide to Chiapas would be the badass Swiss, machete-wielding, combat boot-wearing land activist and indigenous advocate Gertrude “Trudi” Blom.
Along with getting to experience the unique wildlife and landscapes Chiapas had to offer, Trudy introduced LC to curanderos (shamans) and was able to observe secret rituals that most don’t, especially foreigners.
Back in her home in Colonia Roma in Mexico City, she took her research studying the Kʼicheʼ (Quicheʼ) Maya Popoh Vu and combined it with her experience with the Chiapas Maya, and some Northern Renaissance inspiration like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch, resulting in this stunning timeless mural.
“The Magical World of the Maya” has been on our minds since those Las Tres Witches days and in 2024, we decided to finally see it for ourselves in Mexico City! Words cannot describe what it was like to experience it in person but hopefully this episode might be a close second!
So, join us as we explore how this mural came to be!
Topics include: Was Waldo in Bosch’s ear? Guardian Chihuahuas in Roma, Henry Kissinger goes woke, early 2000s Hot Topic tees, and so much more!
FEATURED MUSIC:
glaciære - "3,5km long distance (feat. Hysteric Pixie Nightmare Girl)"
Like Rosa Rolanda’s work, it’s unbelievable that his work still feels so contemporary despite being made almost a century ago.
Topics Include: Tomax and Xamot at Costco, Anthony Bourdain blowing up the 90s glam culinary scene, Cracking your teacher’s skull, Palacio de Cultura Banamex, Harlem Renaissance, Impossible interviews, Animal bucket lists, Empanadas with tentacles
The album is amazing - It’s like drifting off in a meditative trance, being brought back to awareness, before drifting again. If you like artists like The Caretaker - you really need to spend time with these albums.
