Jonathan Schwartz is the founder of Atelier 4, one of the most trusted names in art handling and shipping worldwide. But his entry into the business was less than auspicious - he answered an ad to drive art cross-country despite not really being a driver, worked for what he calls "a pirate outfit," and came home from vacation to find maggots in the sink.

That was 36 years ago.

Since founding Atelier 4 in 1989, Jonathan has built a company known for handling the art world's most precious and challenging works - from Kerry James Marshall paintings he installed in the '90s to the Magna Carta itself.

Carrie and Jonathan talks about the Olympic-level logistics of art handling, why the name Atelier 4 is partly a joke about art world pretension, what happens when artwork components suddenly appear on endangered species lists, and why his favorite art handlers don't necessarily love art - they just need good hand-eye coordination and solid work ethic.

This conversation pulls back the curtain on the invisible infrastructure that keeps the art world moving, told by someone who's done everything from cutting stretcher bars to navigating international customs law, and who somehow maintains both deep reverence for the work and a healthy sense of absurdity about the whole enterprise.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Seen podcast.

Liked what you heard? Get early access to these episodes and a ton of other great art content by becoming a member of Seen at seen.art.

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram, @watchseenart.

About Behind The Seen

The Behind The Seen Series brings on art world professionals of all sorts to give you insight into what the art world is really like. Curious what it’s like being a gallerist, an art critic or a curator? Then this series is for you.

What does a room reveal about the life lived inside it? For painter Lottie Cole, the answer is: everything.

Lottie joins Carrie to talk about her new show at Long & Ryle Gallery in London - an exhibition of interiors inspired by Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen, whose famous family home, Bowen's Court, was sold and demolished by a farmer who wanted only its timber. The story of that house - and Bowen's relationship to it - became the beating heart of a new body of work that asks what we inherit, what we lose, and what stays with us long after the walls come down.

Along the way, Lottie talks about painting Bloomsbury interiors at Monk's House and Charleston Farmhouse; the auction house catalogues full of men and the women painters who deserved to be in them; a lifelong compulsion to move house that's apparently genetic; the novel you should read before you see the show; and why, when you finally arrive at a writer's grave for a moment of profound connection, sometimes there are just six men with strimmers.

Lottie Cole's show opens 3rd June at Long & Ryle, London: https://longandryle.com/exhibitions/151/works/

Read: The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16816/9780099276470

Join our mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠

Follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.

Carrie Scott sits down with conceptual artist Phillip Toledano to unpack his most audacious project yet - a show at Fotografiska Berlin attributed to a photographer who doesn't exist. We get into AI, historical surrealism, the death of photographic truth, and why his most provocative work is also his most personal.

Explore Phillip's work: https://mrtoledano.com/

Join our mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠

Follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.

Painter Suzy Spence spent 35 years making work in New York before trading the city for a sprawling Vermont studio - and she never stopped being radical. In this conversation, we dig into her summer show at the Bundy Museum, the feminist politics woven into equestrian imagery, and why the best paintings should be, in her words, hopefully indescribable.

Explore Suzy's work: https://suzyspence.com/

Join our free art newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠⁠

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠⁠

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.

This week on Have You Seen?, Carrie sits down with photographer Anastasia Samoylova - a Russian-born, Miami-based artist who has spent 15 years building one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary photography, largely by refusing to be intimidated by anything.

They talk about Ana's project pairing her contemporary Florida images with Walker Evans's archive, which landed her a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. About what it means to photograph a place that owes its entire identity to images of itself. About publishing as a woman in a field that is still overwhelmingly male. And about the simple but radical approach that has opened almost every door in her career: just ask, and have no expectations about the answer.

Explore Ana's work: https://www.anasamoylova.com/

Join our free art newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.

Damian Elwes spends years researching each painting, piecing together fragments of photographs and historical evidence to recreate the exact studios where masterpieces were made. He's probably the only person alive who's visited every Picasso studio and every Matisse studio. And he sometimes teaches art historians things they don't know about the artists they study.

In this conversation, we explore his reluctant journey from Harvard playwriting student to forensic art historian, the detective work behind each painting, and what he's discovered about Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Yayoi Kusama, Damien Hirst, and more.

These aren't just paintings of rooms—they're portraits of creativity itself.

Artists Discussed:Pablo Picasso | Henri Matisse | Frida Kahlo | Jean-Michel Basquiat | Damien Hirst | Yayoi Kusama | David Hockney | Rose Wylie | Keith Haring | Georgia O'Keeffe | Donald Judd

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Seen podcast. Liked what you heard? Get early access to these episodes and a ton of other great art content by becoming a member of Seen at seen.art (⁠⁠⁠https://seen.art⁠⁠⁠).

Join our free newsletter and become an art insider:⁠⁠⁠ https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠⁠⁠.

Syd Carpenter has spent fifty years expanding what clay can hold and now she's expanding beyond clay altogether. With a major retrospective at the Woodmere Art Museum and three additional exhibitions on view, Carpenter is having the kind of moment most artists dream of. But talk to her for five minutes and you realize she's not looking back. She's still inventing.

In this episode, Syd talks about choosing art over medicine, the teacher who gave her space to become herself, why she rejects the idea that her identity gives her a special connection to clay, and how her garden has quietly shaped everything she makes. She's funny, direct, and deeply generous and her story is exactly the kind of thing you want to hear right now.

Explore Syd's recent exhibitions:

https://www.sju.edu/maguire-art-museum/exhibitions/syd-carpenter

https://www.ursinus.edu/live/profiles/10435-syd-carpenter

https://woodmereartmuseum.org/experience/exhibitions/planting-in-place-time-and-memory

Join our free newsletter and become an art insider:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.

This week, Carrie is joined by Dan Webb, a Seattle-based woodcarver whose work has been astonishing her for 20 years. Dan creates sculptures that seem impossible: hands emerging from raw timber, Mylar balloons carved from wood that say "I love you" and actually mean it, gestures frozen in material older than nations.

We discuss his fifth exhibition at Greg Kucera Gallery, "Yespalier," and explore why he's dedicated himself to an ancient craft in a contemporary art world, what it means to carve through 300-year-old trees, and how he finds beauty and agency within the structures that constrain us.

Represented by Greg Kucera Gallery, Dan's work is in collections including the Smithsonian, Seattle Art Museum, and Tacoma Art Museum.

If you've ever wondered whether contemporary art can be both technically masterful and conceptually profound, both beautiful and meaningful—this conversation is for you.

Join our free newsletter and become an art insider:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://mailchi.mp/seen/waitlist⁠⁠⁠

If you want to connect with us between episodes, follow us on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/watchseenart⁠⁠⁠⁠.

About the Have You Seen? series:

The ⁠Have You Seen? Series⁠ is all about talking to emerging and mid-career artists about their journey to now.

Curious about how an artist got to where they are or indeed why they chose art in the first place? Then this series is for you. Join us as we speak to emerging and mid-career artists across the globe. Don’t worry, there’s no hiding behind art speak here, or pretending that being an artist is a bowl of cherries. We’re here to hear it all, straight from the source.