Hilton Als on Jean Rhys

The Great Women Artists

Katy Hessel

Arts

4.8 • 944 Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I am so excited to say that my guest, returning for his second interview on the GWA Podcast, is the esteemed American writer, critic, and curator, Hilton Als… A staff writer at The New Yorker for over 30 years, and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2017 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing, Als is the author of numerous books. He is a teaching professor at Berkeley, Last time Als came on the podcast, we discussed two significant artists for him, the photographer, Diane Arbus; and the painter of people, Alice Neel – the latter of whom he has curated exhibitions of, exploring her life in uptown Manhattan, and her various friendships with artists, writers, dancers, neighbours and social activists. 119 But today I meet Hilton on the occasion of a new exhibition he has curated: Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World at Michael Werner Gallery in London, which explores the extraordinary and complex life of Creole-British writer, Jean Rhys, born in Dominica in 1890 to plantation owners, who grew up a white person, or Creole, in a largely Black society, and moved to Britain aged 16 and lived most of her life in Europe until her death in 1979. She was known for telling stories of women in exile, often at the whim of powerful men, and celebrated for her last and best-selling novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, published 1966, that told the life story of the so-called mad woman in the attic, Antoinette Cosway, from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, from Cosway’s perspective. And what a beautiful, complex, show this is. Featuring Hurvin Anderson, Celia Paul, Gwen John, Sarah Lucas, Kara Walker, and more, it is a rich portrait of a complex figure who lived between worlds, cultures, reality and fiction. And I can’t wait to find out more. Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World is at Michael Werner Gallery, London, until 22 November. For more on the show: https://www.michaelwerner.com/exhibitions/postures-jean-rhys-in-the-modern-world. Books/poems mentioned: Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys Smile Please - Jean Rhys Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë Self-Portrait - Celia Paul Jean Rhys (poem) - Derek Walcott Autobiography of My Mother - Jamaica Kincaid A View of The Empire at Sunset - Caryl Phillips Artists/writers mentioned: Hurvin Anderson Kara Walker Eugène Atget Eugène Leroy Cynthia Lahti Francis Picabia Celia Paul Gwen John Augustus John Sarah Lucas Hans Bellmer Caryl Phillips Jamaica Kincaid Derek Walcott -- THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: https://www.famm.com/en/ https://www.instagram.com/famm_mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037 Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic Music by Ben Wetherfield

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to season 14 of the Great Woman Artist podcast. I'm so thrilled to be bringing you a fantastic series featuring conversations with artists, writers, curators and more. Just before I introduce our sponsor, I am very excited to let you know that I have written a new book. How to Live an Artful Life is out on the 6th of November
0:22.2	2025 and features a quote by an artist or writer for every day of the year. Think Tracy
0:28.6	Emin to Marino Abramovich, Zadie Smith to Ali Smith, Nan Golden to Hilton Al's, plus historical
0:34.5	writers and artists too. In the book, they offer us advice from how to slow down and
0:39.9	pay attention to daily routines and putting ideas into action. Each month takes on a different
0:45.5	theme. For example, January is about where do ideas come from? February is all about love and
0:51.0	passion. August is about beauty. November is about memory. December is about
0:55.7	joy. Because in a world where it seems that so many of us forget to look anymore, we can learn from
1:01.2	those who do. And to help the reader feel like they can apply the artist's word to their life,
1:06.6	I've written a short response to each entry to help guide and inspire you throughout the year.
1:11.9	And I've linked to where you can pre-order it from in the show notes.
1:14.8	And now for our sponsor, I am thrilled to say that this series is supported by the Levitt Collection,
1:20.7	a vast and varied art collection, which in the last eight years has become entirely focused
1:26.3	on works by women artists.
1:28.6	You can find much of this, made up of Impressionists, abstract expressionists, contemporary artists
1:33.7	and more, at FAM in Mujan, France, the first private museum in mainland Europe, devoted
1:40.0	entirely to female artists, spearheaded by Christian Levitt, who has published three research
1:46.0	books in this area. Recently, they launched The Levitt Letter, a monthly subscription-based letter,
1:52.3	advising collectors and dealers on the future trends in this specific art market.
1:57.5	Subscribers to the Levitt Letter also become members of the Levit Lounge, a community where
2:02.6	Christian shares his valuable insights and expertise, and gives subscribers direct access to visiting
2:08.3	Levitt's home in Florence and Mujan and the monthly webinar. Across all of these platforms,
	...

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