Reading · The Great Women Artists

Dear Readers, I hope you are having a great July. There’s so much to look forward to this month. At Tate Modern there’s the legendary trio of Tracey Emin, Frida Kahlo and Ana Mendieta.

Elsewhere, there’s a survey of Japanese Women Photographers at The Photographers’ Gallery; Zurbarán at the National Gallery; Marilyn Monroe at the NPG; Alice Neel in Porto, and more. But first, some updates!

At the historic moment that all three artists are exhibiting at Tate Modern, I wrote about these extraordinary makers. Read here.

Some summer reading recommendations – from books I’ve read and loved, to those on my bedside stack that I hope to get through. Read here.

The US edition of my kids book, The Story of Art Without Men: An Illustrated Guide to Amazing Women Artists, will be published on October 6, 2026! Pre-order your copy here.

And to celebrate the US announcement, we’ve got a Q&A with the brilliant Ping Zhu, whose vivid, expressive drawings have brought the stories of artists and art movements to life so beautifully. Read here!

I spoke with Laurien van der Werff and Marion Anker from Women of the Rijksmuseum about rediscovering women in the archives, the challenges and surprises of their work, and the most fascinating stories they’ve uncovered. Read on!

One from the GWA archive – my highlights from the 2024 episode, Naomi Beckwith on Senga Nengudi. Click here.

APPLICATIONS OPEN: Art History Link Up: September 2026 Art History A Level and EPQ courses

Behind the scenes of our rebrand with Dennis Studio - Insights News | Art History Link Up

Are you – or do you know – a state school student interested in doing Art History A Level or an EPQ? Applications are now open for Art History Link Up’s FREE Art History A Level and EPQ courses.

Students can take part online or in person at the Courtauld on Saturday mornings or afternoons during term time. Apply by Friday 4 September. Find out more and apply here!

And now for this month’s recommendations… Enjoy! Love Katy xxx

Ana Mendieta, Tate Modern, London (until 17 Jan 2027)
Hold to This Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (until 18 Apr 2027)
Summer Exhibition 2026, Royal Academy, London (until 23 Aug)
Frida Kahlo: The Making of an Icon, Tate Modern, London (until 3 Jan 2027)
Ten.8 afterimage, The New Art Gallery, Walsall (until 13 Sep)
Shahzia Sikander: High Seas, Closed Skies, Victoria Miro, London (until 31 Jul)
Joy Like Time: Marina Abramović, Kalliopi Lemos and Gillian Wearing, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich (until 15 Nov)
Japanese Women Photographers: From 1950s to now, The Photographers Gallery, London (until 27 Sep)
Chitra Ganesh: Journey to the Great Below, Baltic, Gateshead (until 17 Jan 2027)
Mandy El Sayegh: Jewel Tones, Thaddeus Ropac, London (until 31 Jul)
Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait, National Portrait Gallery, London (until 6 Sep)
Anne Hardy: Feelings, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (until 27 Sep)
Lynn Chadwick: The Complete Prints, Pangolin Gallery, London (until 5 Sep)
Say When…, Soho Revue, London (until 31 Jul)

Alice Neel: Beautifully Imperfect, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (until Jan 2027)
Sylvia Sleigh and Re-Collection: An Exhibition, MAMCO, Geneva (until 25 Oct)
Sara Flores: Akinananti, White Cube, New York (until 14 Aug)
Barbara Kruger: Untitled (Pride and Contempt), Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Kallithea (until 1 Nov)
Alina Szapocznikow: Autobiography in Fragments, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich (until 5 Sep)
In the Very Bowels of Changes: Surrealism and Antifacism, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (until 10 Jan 2027)
Terminal Piece, mumok, Vienna (until 7 Feb 2027)
Mary Ellen Carrol: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (until 1 Nov)
Katherine Hubbard: The Great Room, Secession, Vienna (until 30 Aug)
Directionless, Hauser & Wirth, Menorca (until 25 Oct)
Nicola L.: When the Earth Turned the Other Way, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (until 18 Oct)
Sonia Boyce: Demonstrate, Queens Museum, New York City (until 31 Jan 2027)

I recently came across the short film Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris.

Made in 1970, it follows Terence Dixon travelling to Paris to capture the writer James Baldwin with the intention of making a portrait of “a writer, not a political figure”. From the off, the white filmmakers seem determined to fit Baldwin’s art and identity into a neat, apolitical package. Unsurprisingly, Baldwin is fiercely resistant to their attempts at diluting his ideas and flattening his politics. The filmmakers continue to insist he answers on their terms, and the film becomes a masterclass in how not to interview someone – yet, through that failure, it captures something extraordinary.

What Dixon intended as a simple portrait of a writer gradually transforms into something much more complicated, and a lot more interesting; a study of the difficulty of representing Baldwin at all, given the historical, political and social dynamics of their interactions.

One of the most powerful moments comes at the Bastille, where Baldwin reflects on revolution, prisons, race and colonial power. Speaking to the filmmakers as representatives of a European gaze looking at a Black American subject, he exposes the imbalance built into the documentary itself.

In the final section, the filmmakers finally fall quiet, allowing Baldwin to speak freely to a group of admirers. As he said: “The world is held together by the love and passion of very few people.”

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris is now streaming globally on MUBI.

You can get 30 days free at mubi.com/katyhessel.