Excuse Me, Katy Hessel

In the first episode of Season 2, Erin-Atlanta Argun is joined by art historian and author Katy Hessel, who has made it her life’s work to champion women artists.

Many listeners will know Katy from her Instagram account and podcast, The Great Women Artists, which she launched in 2015 after visiting an art fair in London and realising that not a single woman artist was being exhibited. Since then, she has transformed that frustration with the male-centric infrastructure of the art world into a daily practice of storytelling – foregrounding the artists too often omitted from the canon.

Katy’s first book, The Story of Art Without Men, became a defining entrypoint for readers looking for a fuller, fairer history of art. She has now released an adaptation of this book, The Story of Art Without Men: An Illustrated Guide to Amazing Women, which is out now. Designed for younger readers, teachers, and anyone building confidence in how to look at and engage with art.

Across the conversation, Erin and Katy talk about what it means to “own” art. Katy reflects on taking children through museums and classrooms to understand what holds their attention, and how visual culture shapes the way we come to understand the world. And, of course, she answers the Excuse Me question, sharing her five dream artworks and the stories behind them… which you’ll uncover in this episode.