Archives of American Art Announces New Podcast Series Showcasing Its Oral History Collection

The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has announced a new four-episode series of its podcast “ARTiculated: Dispatches from the Archives of American Art,” which showcases one of the oldest, largest and most respected oral history collections in the world. The series launches Dec. 3, and each monthly episode will track one artist’s career, community work and living legacy.

Through four 30-minute episodes, the series will spotlight four veteran artists: ceramicist and textile artist Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee), muralist Leo Tanguma, painter and photographer Lenore Chinn and painter Pat Steir. These artists showcase powerful combinations of experience, drive, enduring creativity and adaptability; their stories reflect the strength and vitality of the visual arts across the United States. Drawing from the Archives’ oral history collections and new interviews, each episode gives listeners insight into the artists’ journeys and enduring inventiveness.

“ARTiculated offers an opportunity for us to learn history through the experiences of those who shaped it, and we are particularly thrilled to illuminate stories from the Archives about artists who have made big moves later in their careers, as we celebrate continued experimentation and transformation,” said Ben Gillespie, the oral historian at the Archives of American Art and producer of the series.

Featured Artists

Each featured artist will share their history through the lens of their distinct perspective of American history and culture. The schedule is below:

Dec. 3

Anita Fields (b. 1951 | Osage/Muscogee) is a ceramicist and fiber artist known for her fusion of clay and textile to explore and extend traditional Native techniques and forms. Throughout her career, Fields has pushed the limits of clay’s representative capacity, mimicking and transforming other objects through its malleability. Fields is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Jan. 7, 2025  

Leo Tanguma (b. 1941) is a Chicano muralist known for his works that integrate Mexican American heritage, spirituality, social justice and autobiographical elements. Born in Beeville, Texas, he began his career in Houston with ambitious murals that advocated for social change. In the 1980s, he moved to Denver, where his public works made waves in the Denver International Airport, and he continues to create murals throughout the Denver community, most recently at Ricardo Flores Magon Academy. 

Feb. 4, 2025

Lenore Chinn (b. 1949) is a Chinese American painter, photographer and queer rights activist based in San Francisco. Chinn co-founded the Lesbians in the Visual Arts and Queer Cultural Center and has been an active member of the Asian American Women Artists Association. While she began her career as a realist painter of queer life in the Bay Area, Chinn shifted to photography and eventually activist documentary, a practice she has cultivated in recent years.

March 4, 2025

Pat Steir (b. 1938) is a painter and printmaker whose work captures the kinetic energy of paint as a liquid. Emerging from conceptualism, minimalism and abstraction, Steir is best known for her focus on the fluidity of paint through her waterfall paintings, which feature drips, pours and splashes of paint in complex layers. She is based in New York City.     

ARTiculated provides broader access to the Archive of American Art’s collection of more than 2,600 oral histories to inspire artists, scholars, students and anyone interested in learning about art in the United States. Listeners can download the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify. The series’ schedule and notes can be found on the Archives’ website.

 ARTiculated: Dispatches from the Archives of American Art is sponsored by Next50, the Denver-based national foundation that works toward creating a world that values aging. 

About the Archives of American Art 

The Archives of American Art (AAA) is a trusted source, empowering an expansive history of American art and culture. Founded at the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1954, the AAA collects, preserves and makes available primary sources documenting the visual arts of the United States. AAA’s vast holdings consist of more than 20 million letters, diaries, sketches and preparatory work, scrapbooks, manuscripts, financial records, photographs, films and audiovisual recordings of artists, dealers, collectors, critics, scholars, museums, galleries, associations and other art-world individuals and institutions. AAA also houses the largest collection of oral histories anywhere on the subject of the visual arts. Users are welcome to explore and to discover their own connections to the makers and making of American art and culture. Visit the Archives’ website at www.aaa.si.edu.

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