I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast today is the esteemed curator, Megan Fontanella.
A specialist in Modern Art and Provenance at the Guggenheim New York, Fontanella’s research interests focus on late 19th and early 20th European art and the avant-garde in the USA. She has organised a plethora of exhibitions for the Guggenheim across the globe, from Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim (2017); Kandinsky (2020–21); Kandinsky: Around the Circle (2021–22; 2023–24); Young Picasso in Paris (2023), as well as travelling collection exhibitions in Australia, Canada, and Europe.
But the reason why we are speaking to Fontanella today is because she is very excitingly curating a monumental exhibition by the German Expressionist, Gabriele Münter. Titled Contours of a World, the show – opening 7 November through to April 2026 – will feature 60 of the artist’s luminous, bold, sometimes rapidly-made paintings – from her portraits of friends to landscapes of the German alpine town of Murnau – that chart the changing face of modernism in art. Focusing on 1908 to 1920, it will deep-dive into her involvement with “The Blue Rider” – a group of visionary artists and writers who explored how colour and form could evoke emotion and spiritualist ideas – to the works she made during the First World War.
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World is on view at Guggenheim New York, 7 Nov – 26 Apr 2026:
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/gabriele-munter
Artists mentioned:
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938)
Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) group
Artworks mentioned:
Gabriele Münter - Still Life on the Tram After Shopping (1909–1912)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Marianne Werefkin (1909)
Gabriele Münter - Boating (1910)
Gabriele Münter - Meditation (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Future (Woman in Stockholm) (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Anna Roslund (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Lady in an Armchair, Writing (1929)
Gabriele Munter - Breakfast of the Birds (1934)
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I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast today is the esteemed curator, Megan Fontanella.
A specialist in Modern Art and Provenance at the Guggenheim New York, Fontanella’s research interests focus on late 19th and early 20th European art and the avant-garde in the USA. She has organised a plethora of exhibitions for the Guggenheim across the globe, from Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim (2017); Kandinsky (2020–21); Kandinsky: Around the Circle (2021–22; 2023–24); Young Picasso in Paris (2023), as well as travelling collection exhibitions in Australia, Canada, and Europe.
But the reason why we are speaking to Fontanella today is because she is very excitingly curating a monumental exhibition by the German Expressionist, Gabriele Münter. Titled Contours of a World, the show – opening 7 November through to April 2026 – will feature 60 of the artist’s luminous, bold, sometimes rapidly-made paintings – from her portraits of friends to landscapes of the German alpine town of Murnau – that chart the changing face of modernism in art. Focusing on 1908 to 1920, it will deep-dive into her involvement with “The Blue Rider” – a group of visionary artists and writers who explored how colour and form could evoke emotion and spiritualist ideas – to the works she made during the First World War.
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World is on view at Guggenheim New York, 7 Nov – 26 Apr 2026:
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/gabriele-munter
Artists mentioned:
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938)
Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) group
Artworks mentioned:
Gabriele Münter - Still Life on the Tram After Shopping (1909–1912)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Marianne Werefkin (1909)
Gabriele Münter - Boating (1910)
Gabriele Münter - Meditation (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Future (Woman in Stockholm) (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Anna Roslund (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Lady in an Armchair, Writing (1929)
Gabriele Munter - Breakfast of the Birds (1934)
I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the most exciting painters working in the world today, Michaela Yearwood-Dan.
Hailed for her works that bloom, dance, and come alive when you are witness to them, with an abundance of textures, weathers, colours, mark-makings, and more, Yearwood-Dan intertwines the botanical with abstraction, and brings painting back to its natural-like essence. Never restricting herself to just one medium, Yearwood-Dan works across ceramics, sound, installation, performance, and all-encompassing paintings that can range from small to the colossal, with some measuring up to 8-metres-wide. See them in the flesh and it’s like seeing an entire ecosystem unfold, embedded with hidden languages, whether it be the symbolism she uses or the small elements of text, poetry and song lyrics, that add another dimension to her rich, embellished worlds.
Raised in London as the youngest of three girls, by parents and grandparents that taught her about craft, weaving, seamstressing, Yearwood-Dan completed her studies at Brighton from 2013–2016, where she graduated top of her class, before going onto experiment with an artistic language that has constantly been growing and reinventing, and pushing paint to its limits. While early work – at the time I met her in around 2019, when she invited me for a studio visit when we were both in our mid 20s – explored more interior images intertwined with house plants, it has been incredible to watch her work mould into spaces of abundance, possibility and exhilaration.
And indeed, her work has been described by the renowned writer and curator Ekow Eshun as having “a sense of boundless possibility”, which feels apt for a time like today, when it feels more than ever for art to be our guide to expanding our imagination, and also joy in times of despair. This is exactly the topic of Yearwood-Dan’s new exhibition, opening at Hauser & Wirth in London on 13 May, titled No Time for Despair, referencing a line from Toni Morrison’s 2004 article for The Nation, which states, “in times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.” – and I can’t wait to find out more…
Exhibition page: https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/michaela-yearwood-dan-no-time-for-despair/
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The Great Women Artists
I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast today is the esteemed curator, Megan Fontanella.
A specialist in Modern Art and Provenance at the Guggenheim New York, Fontanella’s research interests focus on late 19th and early 20th European art and the avant-garde in the USA. She has organised a plethora of exhibitions for the Guggenheim across the globe, from Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim (2017); Kandinsky (2020–21); Kandinsky: Around the Circle (2021–22; 2023–24); Young Picasso in Paris (2023), as well as travelling collection exhibitions in Australia, Canada, and Europe.
But the reason why we are speaking to Fontanella today is because she is very excitingly curating a monumental exhibition by the German Expressionist, Gabriele Münter. Titled Contours of a World, the show – opening 7 November through to April 2026 – will feature 60 of the artist’s luminous, bold, sometimes rapidly-made paintings – from her portraits of friends to landscapes of the German alpine town of Murnau – that chart the changing face of modernism in art. Focusing on 1908 to 1920, it will deep-dive into her involvement with “The Blue Rider” – a group of visionary artists and writers who explored how colour and form could evoke emotion and spiritualist ideas – to the works she made during the First World War.
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World is on view at Guggenheim New York, 7 Nov – 26 Apr 2026:
https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/gabriele-munter
Artists mentioned:
Gabriele Münter (1877–1962)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938)
Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”) group
Artworks mentioned:
Gabriele Münter - Still Life on the Tram After Shopping (1909–1912)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Marianne Werefkin (1909)
Gabriele Münter - Boating (1910)
Gabriele Münter - Meditation (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Future (Woman in Stockholm) (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Portrait of Anna Roslund (1917)
Gabriele Münter - Lady in an Armchair, Writing (1929)
Gabriele Munter - Breakfast of the Birds (1934)
