Episode No. 364 features historian and curator Eleanor Harvey and historian Tyler Green.

Tyler Green is the author of "Carleton Watkins: Making the West American," a new biography-ish of the most influential American artist of the 19th century, and that century’s greatest photographer too. He his best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias made at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Watkins’s pictures helped shape America’s (and the world’s) idea of the West, and helped make the West a full participant in the Union and then the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, painting and science.

Green is (usually) the producer/host of The Modern Art Notes Podcast.

Green is interviewed by Eleanor Harvey, the senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her most recent major exhibition was "The Civil War and American Art" (2012). She's presently working on an exhibition about Alexander von Humboldt's influence on American art and culture.

Watkins is available at bookstores and from Amazon (for just $23!), UC Press, Bookfinder and your local independent bookstore (via IndieBound).

Episode No. 363 features curators Tracey Bashkoff and Lawrence W. Nichols.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is showing "Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future," a survey of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). The exhibition features more than 170 of af Klint’s artworks with a focus on the artist’s most significant period, from 1906–20, when her interest in spirtualism helped push her toward non-objective imagery.  It is the first major solo exhibition of af Klint's work in the United States. Tracey Bashkoff curated the exhibition with assistance from David Horowitz. It will be on view through April 23, 2019. The exhibition's excellent catalogue was published by the Guggenheim. Amazon offers it for $40.

On the second segment, Lawrence W. Nichols discusses "Frans Hals Family Portraits: A Reunion," at the Toledo Museum of Art. It is the first exhibition devoted to Hals's family portraiture. The show was motivated  by Toledo's 2011 acquisition of Hals's Van Campen Family Portrait in a Landscape and the recent conservation of Hals's Three Children of the Van Campen Family at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. The Toledo and Brussels canvases were originally a single painting, separated for unknown reasons in either the late 18th or early 19th century. Toledo has reunited the two paintings for this show, along with a third, a fragment of a painting presently in a private collection. The exhibition is in Toledo through Jan. 6, 2019. The exhibition catalogue was published by Hirmer. Amazon offers it for $33.

Episode No. 362 features artist Laurie Simmons and curator Allegra Pesenti.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth opens "Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera," a retrospective of Simmons's career, on October 14. The exhibition spotlights Simmons's long-standing interest in gender roles, most famously in series of pictures that have used dolls and props. It will be on view through January 27, 2019.

On the second segment, Hammer Museum curator Allegra Pesenti discusses "Stones to Stains: The Drawings of Victor Hugo," a survey of Hugo's drawing practice. Hugo was a poet, novelist, playwright and critic best known for novels such as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was a prolific draftsman -- he made at  least 3,000 drawings -- but did not much exhibit during his own lifetime. "Stones to Stains" features 75 drawings mostly made on the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey betwene 1852 and 1870. Pesenti co-curated the show with Cynthia Burlingham in association with Florian Rodari. The beautiful catalogue was published by DelMonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $31.

Episode No. 361 features curator Catherine Craft and historian Jessie Sentivan.

Craft is the curator of "The Nature of Arp," which is at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas through January 6, 2019. The exhibition is a retrospective of Jean Arp (or in German, Hans Arp), one of the most important artists of both the Dada and surrealist movements. Arp investigated chance and spontaneity in his collage-based work and the human form, abstraction and the processes of nature in his sculpture. The exhibition at the Nasher features over 80 works from throughout his career. The exhibition is accompanied by an excellent catalogue published by the Nasher.

On the second segment, curator and historian Jessie Sentivan discusses two Kay Sage-related projects. Sentivan is the editor of the Kay Sage catalogue raisonne, newly out from Delmonico Prestel. Amazon offers it for $100. Sentivan has also curated "Kay Sage: Serene Surrealist," an exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art that recreates Sage's inaugural 1950 exhibition with the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York. It's on view through January 13, 2019.