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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Susan Davidson, curator and art historian, discussing her new book Tom Wesselmann: The Great American Nude, published by Gagosian and Almine Rech, in collaboration with the Estate of Tom Wesselmann. Distributed by Rizzoli International Publications, New York.

Davidson reveals the unexpected story behind one of Pop Art's most recognized series. Wesselmann arrived in New York with no art training and couldn't paint like his hero Willem de Kooning—a limitation that became the foundation for his distinctive approach. She traces how he built his visual language from found materials: candy wrappers, magazine clippings, working radios, even a leaf from his soup at Trader Vic's that ended up in his first portrait collage.

Our conversation examines how the Great American Nude series (1961-73) emerged from a color dream of red, white, and blue and evolved across one hundred works. Davidson discusses Wesselmann's strategic use of art history—placing reproductions of Matisse, Modigliani, and Rembrandt within his compositions as both homage and assertion of his place in their lineage. She illuminates the personal dimension often overlooked in these works: they were Wesselmann's sustained celebration of his relationship with Claire, his wife and inspiration.

For anyone interested in Pop Art's origins, how collections are built, or the ways personal vision intersects with cultural moment, this conversation offers valuable insights.

"He wasn't objectifying; he was actually celebrating his love and marriage with Claire. That's really what drove him in many ways."

– Susan Davidson

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Order the book here

Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.

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About the Author

Curator and art historian Susan Davidson is an authority in the fields of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art with a specialty in the art of Robert Rauschenberg. Davidson is also an accomplished museum professional with over thirty-year’s experience at two distinguished institutions: The Menil Collection, Houston, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Photograph by Richard Renaldi

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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Ian Wardropper, author and former director of The Frick Collection and author of The Fricks Collect: An American Family and the Evolution of Taste in the Gilded Age, published by The Frick Collection in association with Rizzoli Electa.

Wardropper traces the remarkable journey of Henry Clay Frick, who evolved from a hard-edged Pittsburgh industrialist into one of America’s most discerning collectors. He describes how Frick spent two decades developing his eye—beginning with contemporary American paintings before advancing to the rarefied world of Old Master acquisitions at the highest level of the market.

Our conversation delves into Frick’s distinctive collecting philosophy: a relentless emphasis on quality over quantity and a clear vision for creating refined settings in which masterworks of painting and decorative arts could coexist. For collectors and anyone curious about the making of great collections, this episode offers rare and valuable insights.

“Frick was much more careful, studious, looked for the great work coming on the market, did his research and was willing to spend quite a lot of money to get something if he really believed that it was by one of the best artists of great quality, good provenance and good condition.

These were the factors of particular interest to him.”

– Ian Wardropper

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Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple

Order the book here

Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.

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About the Author

Ian Wardropper served as the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director of The Frick Collection for 14 years, leading the institution through its most transformative period, including the first comprehensive renovation in nearly 90 years and the innovative Frick Madison project. Previously, he held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Chairman of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts and at the Art Institute of Chicago for twenty years. A specialist in European decorative arts and sculpture, Wardropper oversaw ambitious exhibitions, a major capital campaign that raised $242 million, and pioneering digital initiatives including the acclaimed "Cocktails with a Curator" series. He holds a Ph.D. in art history from NYU and was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.

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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Sarah Roberts, curator of the landmark exhibition Amy Sherald: American Sublime, and editor of the accompanying catalog published by Yale University Press in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In our conversation, Sarah reflects on the distinctive formal and conceptual qualities of Sherald's portraiture—from her considered use of posture and gaze to the symbolic role of clothing, props and settings. She deliberately turns the focus from outward racial identities to her subjects' interior lives. Sarah discusses how these elements in Herald’s paintings operate together to invite a deeper, slower form of looking, where each subject is rendered with quiet dignity and strength.

We discuss the meaning behind the exhibition’s title, "American sublime" in Sherald's work, and how Sherald’s paintings expand our understanding of who deserves to be seen—and remembered—in American art. Sarah Roberts offers insights into her inclusion of Sherald’s portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor in the exhibition, placing them in the context of the artist’s broader practice and showing how they remain consistent with her vision while subverting conventions of official portraiture..

“I think something similar is at work in Amy's portraiture, the stillness of the bodies, the stillness of the faces creates an expectation that we will bring our own thoughts, preconceptions, associations, to the act of looking.”

– Sarah Roberts

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Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple

Order the book here

Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.

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About the Author

Sarah Roberts is Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation where she oversees the Foundation's Artwork and Archival Collections and the Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné project. Since 2004, she has served in progressive leadership roles in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the SFMOMA, and since 2020 as Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Head of Painting and Sculpture. A specialist in post-war American art, Roberts has organized significant exhibitions including major presentations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Frank Bowling, and co-curated the Joan Mitchell retrospective that traveled internationally. Roberts holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Brown University, and has contributed to numerous publications on contemporary art.

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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Michael Findlay, influential art dealer, director at Acquavella Galleries, and author of Portrait of the Art Dealer as a Young Man, published by Prestel.

His memoir offers a captivating, firsthand account of New York's vibrant downtown art scene in the 1960s and '70s, when Findlay directed one of SoHo's first galleries. Through personal stories and vivid anecdotes, he shares his encounters with Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, Hannah Wilke, and numerous creative figures who defined this transformative era in American art.

Throughout our conversation, Findlay shares previously untold stories about the birth of SoHo's gallery scene and offers rare insights into how today's art market evolved from those experimental beginnings. For collectors, artists, and anyone interested in cultural history, Findlay's perspective on what made this era so distinctive is invaluable.

“The memoir is actually not so very different from [my other books, The Value of Art and Seeing Slowly]. It's perhaps telling the story of how I got to have the opinions or the feelings, or to put it pretentiously, the philosophy, that I expressed in the first two books.

That comes from active seeing, not from an academic background.”

– Michael Findlay

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Listen to this podcast on Spotify and Apple

Order the book here

Learn more about the podcast Reading the Art World here.

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About the Author

Michael Findlay is a leading art dealer who has directed Acquavella Galleries in New York since 2000. Previously, he was International Director of Fine Arts at Christie's and ran his own influential SoHo gallery. He introduced American audiences to Joseph Beuys and Sean Scully while launching the careers of numerous contemporary artists.