Bonus: The Women on the Scene with Audrey Flack
Artist, musician and writer Audrey Flack shares her firsthand accounts of the downtown New York City art scene in the mid-twentieth-century and a song she and her band, The History…
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In February 2024, celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them?
In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael’s letters—as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael’s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers’ deaths and the final words they left behind.
Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta’s death and the trial that followed—interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since.
Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.
Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.
And listen back to season one, where host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta’s death and the trial that followed– interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since.
Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.
Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.
Most Recent Episode
Bonus: The Women on the Scene with Audrey Flack
Artist, musician and writer Audrey Flack shares her firsthand accounts of the downtown New York City art scene in the mid-twentieth-century and a song she and her band, The History…
Bonus: Krasner’s Way with Eleanor Nairne
Katy speaks with Eleanor Nairne, who first introduced her to Lee Kranser’s work. Back in 2019, Nairne exhibited a groundbreaking retrospective of Lee Krasner’s work while she was senior curator…
Episode 6: A Phoenix From the Ashes
1956. New York City. After Pollock’s death, Krasner balances her new role as executor of his estate and her ambitions to continue making art.
Episode 5: The Kiss of Death
1955. Upper West Side. Jackson Pollock seeks help from a psychotherapist practicing controversial methods.
Episode 4: Jackson Pollock Inc.
1945. East Hampton. Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock start a new life in a farmhouse 100 miles east of New York City.
Episode 3: The Collector
1942. Midtown. Peggy Guggenheim arrives, opens a gallery and gives hungry artists hope.
Episode 2: Inner Rhythm
1936. Brooklyn. A young Lee Krasner leaves home and starts to create a kind of art America has never seen before.
Episode 1: Crash
1956. Paris. An artist named Lee Krasner learns that her husband is dead. The entire season will be available to subscribers starting with episode two, on Friday, May 24th.
Death of an Artist Season 2: Krasner and Pollock
On May 17th, Death of an Artist returns with an all new season hosted by Katy Hessel about the woman who made the modern art world: Lee Krasner.
An Epilogue: Live from A.I.R. Gallery
A live audience and curator Patricia Margarita Hernandez join Helen at the A.I.R. gallery in this epilogue to the series. The conversation moves from generational shifts in the artworld to…
The Numbers
In the wake of the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements, art museums began publicly touting their dedication to diversity. In this episode, we hear from two arts journalists about…
Episode 6: The Reckoning
Today, Carl Andre lives in the same apartment where Ana fell to her death. Helen investigates and grapples with what his not guilty verdict means and chips away at the…
Episode 5: The Silencing
Carl Andre is acquitted. Decades later, the art world remains divided about his innocence. In order to protect Carl, the art world maintained a strict separation between the art and…
Episode 4: The Genius Problem
Carl stands trial for the murder of Ana Mendieta. His defense ruthlessly attacks Ana, using her artwork against her, and rests heavily on his prestige in the art world. Helen…
Episode 3: The Feminist Cabal
Ana’s art engaged with her identity as a Cuban female artist. She worked hard to be recognized in a world dominated by white men. After her death, Ana’s friends and…
Episode 2: What the Wall Label Doesn’t Tell You
Following Ana’s death, police take Carl in for questioning. He has scratches on his face. His story is inconsistent, yet he maintains his innocence. In this episode, we rewind and…
Episode 1: The Haunting
In 1980s Manhattan, a young Cuban artist named Ana Mendieta made a name for herself as a rising star in the art world. Her turbulent marriage to the older and…
Introducing Death of an Artist
For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming…
