Katy Hessel

Katy Hessel is a British art historian, broadcaster, writer and curator, living in London, whose work is concerned with women artists.

Hessel was born and raised in London. She attended Westminster School. She studied art history at University College London.

She writes on the subject of women artists for various publications. She has written and presented the BBC arts documentaries Artemisia Gentileschi (2020) and Art on the BBC: Monet (2022).She has hosted Dior Talks: Feminist Art. Hessel runs the Great Women Artists Instagram account and in 2019 created a podcast by the same name in which she interviews art historians, art curators, writers, and art lovers about women artists and also talks to women artists about their work and career. In September 2022, she published the book The Story of Art without Men, a 500-year survey of art by women from the 1500s to 2020s. It won the 2022 Waterstones Book of the Year. Her work has been criticised for not acknowledging fifty years of feminist art-historical research, exemplifying neoliberal feminism and its emphasis on the individual at the expense of all else. In 2022 she became a curatorial trustee of Charleston.

• The Story of Art without Men. London: Penguin, 2022. ISBN 9781529151145.

• 2021: Forbes 30 Under 30 in Art & Culture
• 2022: Winner of Waterstones Book of the Year for The Story of Art Without Men