Main content

Dear Albrecht D眉rer

In his series of imaginary correspondences with some of history's most celebrated artists, Ian Sansom asks Albrecht Durer if he was as vain as he appeared to be?

'Dear Albrecht, Everyone had hair like that - did they? I'll take your word for it. You were very good at hair, can I just say?'

In a series of imaginary correspondences, Ian Sansom is writing letters to five of history's most celebrated artists and interrogating them about, well, just about everything.

'Dear Caravaggio, you're the sort of man who might know: what is wrong with us?'

As the missives fly much is revealed about their lives as well as about Ian's current state of mind. Albrecht Durer is looking for an App developer. When Caravaggio asks for help finding a patron Ian suggests a crowd funding website. Meanwhile, how did Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron get hold of Ian's address? Did her great niece Virginia Woolf pass on his details? And should he really be telling the Tate Modern that Picasso was having a mid-life crisis in 1932?

In his on-going quest to write more epistles than St Paul, it seems Ian is receiving surprising replies from some of our best-loved artists.

Producer - Mark McCleary for 麻豆社 Northern Ireland

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Mon 23 Mar 2020 22:45

Broadcasts

  • Mon 12 Nov 2018 22:45
  • Mon 23 Mar 2020 22:45

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast