1956. Paris. An artist named Lee Krasner learns that her husband is dead.

1956. Paris. An artist named Lee Krasner learns that her husband is dead.

In February 2024, celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them? 

In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael’s letters—as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael’s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers’ deaths and the final words they left behind.

Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta’s death and the trial that followed—interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since. 

Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.

Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.

In February 2024, celebrated children&rsquo;s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and in love. Why did they choose to die together? And what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them?&nbsp;
In season 3 of Death of an Artist, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Alice Gregory set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael&rsquo;s letters&mdash;as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael&rsquo;s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers&rsquo; deaths and the final words they left behind.
Listen back to season 2, where Katy Hessel offers an inside look at how Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, changed everything about the landscape of modern art. And in season 1, host Helen Molesworth revisits the artist Ana Mendieta&rsquo;s death and the trial that followed&mdash;interrogating both the silence and the protest that have accompanied her story ever since.&nbsp;
Death of an Artist Season 1 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries, Somethin&rsquo; Else, and Sony Music Entertainment.
Death of an Artist Season 2 is a co-production between Pushkin Industries and Samizdat Audio.

Death of an Artist

Episode 1: Crash

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/098ad034-9503-4cf1-aff1-b170013e55a1/transcript

“Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead . . . That's why I'm writing this letter. I've had a long and happy life doing what I loved best . . . Now it's time to make room for someone else on this earth.” 

The letters Petra and Michael sent out echo the words of a letter in a children’s book Petra wrote 10 years earlier: the final installment in her beloved series about Lottie the chicken. But it was their relationship – not their work – that Petra and Michael seemed to think of as their most important artistic achievement. Were their deaths, and these letters, their final creative collaboration?

&ldquo;Dear Lottie and Herbie, by the time you read this, I will be dead . . . That's why I'm writing this letter. I've had a long and happy life doing what I loved best . . . Now it's time to make room for someone else on this earth.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The letters Petra and Michael sent out echo the words of a letter in a children&rsquo;s book Petra wrote 10 years earlier: the final installment in her beloved series about Lottie the chicken. But it was their relationship &ndash; not their work &ndash; that Petra and Michael seemed to think of as their most important artistic achievement. Were their deaths, and these letters, their final creative collaboration?

Episode 6: By the Time You Get This Letter

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/30e71000-c17d-4fd8-9088-b4b000f35b28/transcript

“I wrestle with: Was it courage, or was it cowardice?”

This question animates a memorial service for Michael and Petra, held several months after their death. Alice and Leon want to understand it as well: Was Michael and Petra’s suicide a move toward something, or away from something else? To figure it out, they reach out to Michael and Petra’s families, to find out what examples they had from their own parents’ end-of-life experiences that might have led them to this choice.

&ldquo;I wrestle with: Was it courage, or was it cowardice?&rdquo;
This question animates a memorial service for Michael and Petra, held several months after their death. Alice and Leon want to understand it as well: Was Michael and Petra&rsquo;s suicide a move toward something, or away from something else? To figure it out, they reach out to Michael and Petra&rsquo;s families, to find out what examples they had from their own parents&rsquo; end-of-life experiences that might have led them to this choice.

Episode 5: We Are Without Fear

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/4d815e73-f53e-448c-8231-b4b000e8a813/transcript

“It brought up all the things I've never done. All the risks I haven't taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?”

According to Michael Mathers’s first true love, he was always a romantic. Was the death orchestrated with Petra the ending of a love story he’d been trying to craft all along?

Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of Death of an Artist by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

&ldquo;It brought up all the things I've never done. All the risks I haven't taken. It was always about trying to be free, you know?&rdquo;
According to Michael Mathers&rsquo;s first true love, he was always a romantic. Was the death orchestrated with Petra the ending of a love story he&rsquo;d been trying to craft all along?
Get early, ad-free access to the entire season of Death of an Artist by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/death-of-an-artist/id1628639926">show page</a> or at <a href="https://www.pushkin.fm/join-pushkin">pushkin.fm/plus</a>.

Episode 4: Bird on a Wire

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/9e62e9c7-0dfa-4691-97ff-b4ad014bba27/transcript

Episode 1: Crash

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Death of an Artist

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