It is the stuff of legend: Claude Monet discovers Japanese art in the late 1800s, something clicks, and he goes on to become the most famous artist in the world. But one of his greatest influences on the other side of the earth is a mystery, the artist behind the “great wave” and hundreds of other iconic images. The artist who calls himself Hokusai (at least for a time) and won't be nearly as lucky as Monet.

You can see one of Monet’s paintings of the Japanese footbridge he built at Giverny here, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

You can see hundreds of Hokusai’s prints in the collection, including the “great wave,” here.

It's the Season 8 premiere! Claude Monet, by the 1900s, is the most famous artist in the world, a singular genius (if not exactly genial). But there is another Monet: Blanche Hoschedé Monet. The only artist Claude Monet takes under his wing—and almost completely forgotten, until now.

A story of what it means to be an artist, and what happens when your story is not your own. You can see Hoschedé Monet's 1888 Snow Effect landscape, recently acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, here.

A new series of The Object LIVE!, our live tapings of The Object podcast begins this spring with "Talk Dürer to Me!" With fun quizzes, music, and of course storytelling, all about the quirky German genius Albrecht Dürer—around his 555th birthday—and the splendid weirdness of the Renaissance. Date and special guest to be announced soon. Recorded live in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at our home museum in Minneapolis.

Leave us a review wherever you listen and subscribe so you never miss an episode as Season 8 gets rolling.

New season begins March 16! Now, an encore episode that was our most popular story a few seasons ago. About a woman who was once of the most recognizable in the world, her long copper hair filling painting after painting, even if few people knew her name: Fanny Cornforth. Model, muse, and mistress to the most influential artists of the Victorian era, who she still had to fight for everything she got. Until, in the end, she lost the one thing she could count on for sure: herself.

You can see her in this 1868 painting, "I know a maiden fair to see," in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Subscribe now so you never miss an episode of the upcoming season, leave us a review, and visit our home museum if you're in the Twin Cities area: the Minneapolis Institute of Art, now showing "Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945."