Deborah Levy on Gertrude Stein

The Great Women Artists

Katy Hessel

Arts

4.8 • 944 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

TODAY on The Great Women Artists podcast is the esteemed writer, Deborah Levy on avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein. The author of several novels, including August Blue, Hot Milk and Swimming Home, alongside the critically acclaimed Living Autobiography trilogy (some of my favourite books of all time): Things I Don't Want to Know, The Cost of Living and Real Estate, Deborah Levy is one of the most recognisable and influential writers working today. She has been shortlisted twice each for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Booker Prize, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company. But the reason why we are speaking with Levy today is because she has just published a new novel, My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, which follows a narrator who has travelled to Paris to find out more about Stein, the enigmatic, trailblazing writer and patron; a woman who bolted through the 19th to the 20th century and paved the way for modernism as we know it today, with her daring, experimental writing, from Tender Buttons to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and her patronage of artists such as Picasso, Cezanne, and Matisse – and I can’t wait to find out more. My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein https://www.waterstones.com/book/my-year-in-paris-with-gertrude-stein/deborah-levy/2928377373535 THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: www.famm.com/en/ www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037 Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Mikaela Carmichael Music by Ben Wetherfield

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to the Great Women Artists podcast. I'm very excited to bring you
0:06.6	today's episode, but just before we get to our sponsor, I am delighted to say that my new book,
0:11.7	The Story of Art Without Men, an illustrated guide to amazing women artists for younger readers,
0:17.8	or anyone, to be honest, is out now. You can buy it from your local bookshop
0:22.7	or wherever you get your books. And I'm thrilled to say that this series is supported by the
0:27.7	Levit Collection, a vast and varied art collection, and which in the last eight years has become
0:33.6	entirely focused on works by women artists. You can find much of this made up of
0:39.2	impressionists, surrealist, abstract expressionists, contemporary artists and more at FAM in Mujan in
0:45.6	France, the first museum in the world outside of the USA to have a permanent collection
0:50.9	dedicated to major female artists. It's spearheaded by Christian Levitt,
0:55.5	who has published three research books in this area. Located in the heart of the historic village
1:01.1	of Mujan Nican in the south of France, FAM features a stunning collection of nearly 100 works
1:07.0	by 90 internationally acclaimed and emerging female artists. The impressive exhibition of
1:12.5	paintings, sculptures and photographs from the Levitt Collection highlights the creative brilliance
1:17.6	of women who have played pivotal roles in shaping some of the major artistic movements,
1:22.7	from Impressionism to contemporary art. It's only 30 minutes away from Nice Airport,
1:29.0	and FAM, which stands for Female Art artists of the Mujan Museum, is open every day and for further information and bookings,
1:35.3	please visit www.famfamfamfablem.com. I hope you enjoy this episode.
1:45.3	Hello everyone and welcome to The Great Women Artist podcast with me, Katie Hessel.
1:51.5	Some of you might know me from The Great Women Artists, an Instagram account I set up in October 2015,
1:57.1	which celebrates female artists on a daily basis, ranging from young graduates to old masters.
2:03.1	Well, in a similar fashion to the Instagram, this podcast is all about celebrating female
	...

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