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Death of an Artist

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In February 2024, celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them?

In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael’s letters—as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael’s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers’ deaths and the final words they left behind.

Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta’s death and the trial that followed—interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since.

Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.

Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.

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  2. Episode 6: By the Time You Get This Letter

    “Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead . . . That's why I'm writing this letter. I've had a long and happy life doing what I loved best . . . Now it's time to make room for someone else on this earth.” The letter

  3. Episode 5: We Are Without Fear

    “I wrestle with: Was it courage, or was it cowardice?” This question animates a memorial service for Michael and Petra, held several months after their death. Alice and Leon want to understand it as well: Was Michael and Petra’s suicide a m

  4. Episode 4: Bird on a Wire

    “It brought up all the things I've never done. All the risks I haven't taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?” According to Michael Mathers’s first true love, he was always a romantic. Was the death orchestrated with Petra

  5. Episode 3: The Train Has Left the Station

    “I have never regretted my decision, only the amount of unhappiness it caused you. Still, unforgivingness is the product of those who feel it.” When Petra and Michael died, they left everyone in their lives behind. But it wasn’t the first t

  6. Episode 2: It’s Lonely Without You, Friends

    “I would've screamed. I would've shouted. I would've cried out. I would've protested. I would've given a million reasons to not leave this world.” Michael and Petra left their house and the logistics of their afterlife to their friend Patty

  7. Episode 1: Dear Honeys

    DISCLAIMER: This podcast is about suicide. Listener discretion is advised "When Michael and I got together some 40 plus years ago, we’d always planned on checking out together." In February of 2024, a letter arrived at the pharmacy in Astor

  8. Introducing Death of an Artist Season 3: Petra Mathers and Her Michael

    When Alice Gregory and Leon Neyfakh started building a library for their infant daughter, they stumbled across a name in an obituary that Alice recognized from her own childhood: celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathe

  9. Bonus: The Women on the Scene with Audrey Flack

    Artist, musician and writer Audrey Flack shares her firsthand accounts of the downtown New York City art scene in the mid-twentieth-century and a song she and her band, The History of Art, wrote about Jackson Pollock. Flack passed away in J

  10. Bonus: Krasner's Way with Eleanor Nairne

    Katy speaks with Eleanor Nairne, who first introduced her to Lee Kranser’s work. Back in 2019, Nairne exhibited a groundbreaking retrospective of Lee Krasner’s work while she was senior curator at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Today s

  11. Episode 6: A Phoenix From the Ashes

    1956. New York City. After Pollock’s death, Krasner balances her new role as executor of his estate and her ambitions to continue making art. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  12. Episode 5: The Kiss of Death

    1955. Upper West Side. Jackson Pollock seeks help from a psychotherapist practicing controversial methods. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  13. Episode 4: Jackson Pollock Inc.

    1945. East Hampton. Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock start a new life in a farmhouse 100 miles east of New York City. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  14. Episode 3: The Collector

    1942. Midtown. Peggy Guggenheim arrives, opens a gallery and gives hungry artists hope. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  15. Episode 2: Inner Rhythm

    1936. Brooklyn. A young Lee Krasner leaves home and starts to create a kind of art America has never seen before. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  16. Episode 1: Crash

    1956. Paris. An artist named Lee Krasner learns that her husband is dead. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  17. Death of an Artist Season 2: Krasner and Pollock

    On May 17th, Death of an Artist returns with an all new season hosted by Katy Hessel about the woman who made the modern art world: Lee Krasner. See https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  18. An Epilogue: Live from A.I.R. Gallery

    A live audience and curator Patricia Margarita Hernandez join Helen at the A.I.R. gallery in this epilogue to the series. The conversation moves from generational shifts in the artworld to Helen’s own Robin Hood fantasy – and ends with some

  19. The Numbers

    In the wake of the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements, art museums began publicly touting their dedication to diversity. In this episode, we hear from two arts journalists about whether there are actually more artworks by women and peo

  20. Episode 6: The Reckoning

    Today, Carl Andre lives in the same apartment where Ana fell to her death. Helen investigates and grapples with what his not guilty verdict means and chips away at the silence the art world has used to protect both Andre and itself. If you’

  21. Episode 5: The Silencing

    Carl Andre is acquitted. Decades later, the art world remains divided about his innocence. In order to protect Carl, the art world maintained a strict separation between the art and the artist and used silence to preserve the status quo. Bu

  22. Episode 4: The Genius Problem

    Carl stands trial for the murder of Ana Mendieta. His defense ruthlessly attacks Ana, using her artwork against her, and rests heavily on his prestige in the art world. Helen reveals her personal connection to Carl Andre and his work, and h

  23. Episode 3: The Feminist Cabal

    Ana’s art engaged with her identity as a Cuban female artist. She worked hard to be recognized in a world dominated by white men. After her death, Ana’s friends and family demand an investigation. Many of the most powerful members of the ar

  24. Episode 2: What the Wall Label Doesn’t Tell You

    Following Ana’s death, police take Carl in for questioning. He has scratches on his face. His story is inconsistent, yet he maintains his innocence. In this episode, we rewind and take a look back at Carl’s history and his relationship with

  25. Episode 1: The Haunting

    In 1980s Manhattan, a young Cuban artist named Ana Mendieta made a name for herself as a rising star in the art world. Her turbulent marriage to the older and well-established sculptor Carl Andre raised eyebrows. One September night, Carl c

  26. Introducing Death of an Artist: The Story of Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre

    Coming Sept 23: For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Moleswort

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