Katy Hessel
Katy Hessel is an art historian, curator, broadcaster, and author of The Story of Art without Men, a Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller, and the winner of Waterstones Book of the Year 2022. She runs @thegreatwomenartists, an Instagram account that has celebrated women artists since 2015, and writes a fortnightly column for The Guardian. She is the creator and host of The Great Women Artists Podcast. This November, she will release her next book, How To Live An Artful Life: 366 Inspirations from Artists on how to Bring Creativity to Your Everyday.
The first time I came across the American artist Katherine Bradford (b. 1942) was during the pandemic. I remember being spellbound by her paintings of luminous waters, cosmic skies, or supermen flying high. They offered me freedom at a time of being trapped, and—through the power of Bradford's imagination—were a conduit to hope. Full of humans interacting with each other, they were a reminder of the importance of togetherness. We finally met in November 2024, at her studio in Brooklyn, where she’s been working since the 1980s.
