The Great Women Artists Podcast - and Georgia O'Keeffe

How one blog post leads to another....

The Great Women Artists Podcast was started by Katy Wessel, one of this year's Judges of the Derwent Art Prize. (see yesterday's post - Call for Entries: Derwent Art Prize 2022)

Created off the back of @thegreatwomenartists Instagram, this podcast is all about celebrating women artists. Presented by art historian and curator, Katy Hessel, this podcast interviews artists on their career, or curators, writers, or general art lovers, on the female artist who means the most to them.

I'd not come across it before so had a listen yesterday while doing my daily "keep osteoarthritis from getting any worse" walk.

I accessed it via Apple Podcasts and picked the one about Georgia O'Keeffe.

Wanda Corn and Georgia O'Keeffe

This is it - Wanda M Corn on Georgia O'Keeffe - which Katy Wessel announces via Instagram stories and publishes on Wednesdays.

Wanda Corn was the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History at Stanford University (before she retired in 2017), a very knowledgeable speaker AND has actually met Georgia O'Keeffe. 

Her talk about her work related to O'Keeffe was fascinating - but periodically interrupted by Katy Wessel saying "Oh WOW!!!"

This introduction to the podcast gives you a sense of how Katy Wessel talks to her interviewees.

I am SO EXCITED to release this episode with Wanda Corn who not only **KNEW** Georgia O'Keeffe in the 1980s, but who is the curator of the staggeringly brilliant and HIGHLY successful exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern at New York’s The Brooklyn Museum in 2017, which toured around the US.


This was an exhibition that looked at how the renowned modernist artist proclaimed her progressive, independent lifestyle through a self-crafted person – from the way she dressed to how she posed for photographs – expanding our understanding of who O’Keeffe was, and her determination to be in charge of how the world understood her identity and artistic values.

Looking for more info about Wanda led me to these two videos about her particular interest - the clothes of O'Keeffe and how she created a 'brand image' as it were

Out of O'Keeffe's Closet: Clothes, Fashion, and Dressing Modern with Wanda Corn (1 hour 33 mins) 

Dr. Wanda M. Corn, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, Emerita, Stanford University, explores artist Georgia O'Keeffe's use of dress to join body and art in a common aesthetic. Painter Georgia O'Keeffe's clothing style became an intimate part of her artistic identity. She dressed like she painted, putting high value on abstraction and simplicity. Exploring how modern artists redefined themselves and their art, Wanda Corn has carefully researched the apparel of select key artists. Dr. Corn is a leading scholar of American modernism. Among Corn's numerous honors, she is the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2014 from the College Art Association, the learned society for the visual arts.

Exhibition Insights | Guest Curator Wanda Corn on "Georgia O’Keeffe Living Modern" (13 mins)

Georgia O’Keeffe’s sartorial style became an intimate part of her artistic identity. She dressed like she painted, highly valuing abstraction, simplicity, and seriality. Art historian Wanda M. Corn, guest curator of the exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern, explores the way O’Keeffe used her distinctive taste in clothes to model for photographers, creating a public persona for herself that still dominates the American imagination.

Plus this is a Stanford News article about Art historian Wanda Corn tackles Georgia O’Keeffe

More about The Great Women Artist Podcast

It's a very eclectic list of artists which are featured in the podcast. So far there have been 75 podcasts - all of which are accessible via Apple Podcasts.

I'll probably keep listening - but pick all the ones I've heard of to listen to first!