Menu

  • Home
  • About
  • Search
  • Featured Shows
Spokely

© 2026 Spokely

Art History for All

Art History for All

Allyson Healey

ArtsSociety & CultureEducation

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)

Episodes

Episode 28: No Foolin’

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,…
35min•Nov 2, 2021
Episode 27: The Incredible Flying Kris

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…
32min•Aug 9, 2021
Episode 26: The Case of Ingapirca

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…
26min•Feb 22, 2021
Episode 25: Aboriginal Glyph

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…
24min•Aug 31, 2020
Episode 24: A Place to Rest

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…
26min•Jun 8, 2020
#podcastblackout

#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…
2min•Jun 1, 2020
Episode 23: Rock Steady

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…
24min•Mar 9, 2020
Episode 22: Gilded Gingerbread

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.
27min•Dec 24, 2019
Episode 21: A Paintbrush in Her Hand

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.
29min•Nov 25, 2019
In Focus: Conservation Horror Stories

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!
14min•Oct 31, 2019
Episode 20: Big Odalisque Energy

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."
29min•Oct 28, 2019
Episode 19: The Casco and the Yacht

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. ©…
29min•Oct 1, 2019
Episode 18: As Much Worker as Woman

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!
30min•Aug 26, 2019
Episode 17: First Lady to Travel Over Sea

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?
29min•Jun 25, 2019
Episode 16: Invasion of the Night

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.
29min•May 27, 2019
Episode 15: Compared to Rocks and Mountains

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…
29min•Apr 29, 2019
Episode 14: Happiness and Color

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…
25min•Mar 26, 2019
Episode 13: Namatjira’s Creek

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…
29min•Feb 28, 2019
Episode 12: Wrecked

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…
31min•Jan 29, 2019
Episode 11: Suspended on a Golden Chain

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…
32min•Dec 24, 2018
1 / 2