The podcaster behind ArtCurious and author of The Club on how she got into the fascinating world of art history
As told to Ayn-Monique Klahre
This July, WALTER will be hosting art curator, podcaster and writer Jennifer Dasal for “An Evening in Paris,” an immersive Book Club event that feels more soiree than study hall (think: French makeovers and live portrait sessions!). The reason? Her latest book, The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris, explores a fascinating time in art history with lots of room for play — and relevance to today. We connected with her to learn about her background and why she felt compelled to share this story.
Give me a little bit of your background, how did you get into working in the art world?
After a childhood filled with disinterest in art — I was far more excited by rocks and fossils — I fell into taking art history in college almost by accident, and fell in love with it! A bachelor’s degree led to a master’s degree and then some PhD coursework. When a job in the curatorial department of the North Carolina Museum of Art appeared, voilà! I applied, and won a position. I worked there for 13 years! I never anticipated becoming an art historian, and that’s partially what I love about this strange, twisty story of mine.
What inspired you to go from the curator track to podcasting? How were they similar and different?
I fell into podcasting similarly to how I fell into art history: I never planned on it, but the idea found me! I have been listening to podcasts since 2007 — I was an early adopter — and I’ve long loved the format (I used to call it “adult storytime”). When I learned about the details of the incredible and bizarre story of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911, I thought, How fun! I’d love to share that story… how about sharing it as a podcast? And I leapt wholeheartedly into it, with barely any preparation! But I’m glad I did.
I think that there’s actually some decent overlap between curatorial work and podcasting. Both are about telling a story. When I curate an exhibition, I need to make sure I have a main narrative that I’m getting across, just like I’d do for a podcast episode. I also need to make sure that the story works for a general audience that includes both in-the-know artsy folks and those who might know little to nothing about art.
There was no overlap between the podcast and my job at the NCMA. I purposefully kept them separate — for example, I never really dabbled in contemporary art on ArtCurious because I was working as a curator of modern and contemporary art. My educational background, though, skews more historical in nature. For the podcast, it felt more fun to go back to share tales of older works of art, and it happily kept the project as fully my own and not something that might be construed as a museum endeavor.
How did the podcast/those efforts lead to your first book?
Rather easily, honestly, though I was originally somewhat skeptical of the whole thing! After a couple of years of podcasting, my husband said, You have all these great stories and have done so much work. What are you going to do next? I answer, Nothing — the podcast episodes were written to stand on their own, full stop. But he convinced me that there was a greater opportunity to share them, as well as new stories, in book format. So I wrote a book proposal, landed an agent quickly, and brokered a deal with Penguin not that long after. It was a strangely speedy process! And I don’t take it for granted one bit.
Then what inspired this second book? Was there a certain story or jumping off point that made you more… curious about this era?
Like nearly everything in my career, this one began randomly rather than me seeking it out. After my first book, ArtCurious, came out, I was giving a presentation in Naples, Florida. After my talk, a visitor sidled up to me and asked if I had ever heard of the American Girls’ Club in Paris. I hadn’t — and I actually thought that maybe she was talking about a historical fiction romp or otherwise something involved with American Girl dolls! But it turns out it was a real place, and it existed during one of my favorite periods in art history: the Belle Époque, the politically stable, artistically rich period before World War I. To know that there was a club that housed, fed, entertained and brought American women artists together in Paris during this era was a fascinating discovery for me. And I was shocked and excited to know that not much research had been done on it!
How was the writing process different from (or similar to) writing ArtCurious?
It was like night and day to write these two books! ArtCurious, though it did require a good amount of research, was nevertheless easily managed because its scope was smaller. It contained 12 separate chapters — 12 separate stories — and each of them was pretty discrete from one another. The Club, however, is one narrative, and though each of the chapters cover something a bit different, they’re all tied together with the larger narrative of discussing The Club as a place and the women associated with it. So trying to keep the larger narrative thread was certainly more of a challenge for this book.
Even more of that challenge was the research itself. Because not a lot of work had been done in this area (particularly outside of Paris), I had to do some serious on-the-ground research. I accessed the Club founders’ papers at the Library of Congress, I visited artist archives in Washington, DC, Albany, New York, New York City and Northampton, Massachusetts, plus accessed other artist papers online through digital requests. And this is all in addition to hundreds — actual hundreds — of newspaper and magazine articles from the era that I read. It took me a full year to research this book, and then nearly another year to write it.
Are there any of the women’s stories from the book that particularly resonate with you? Why?
I was especially drawn to three artists I discuss in the book: Anne Goldthwaite, Alice Morgan Wright and Meta Vaux Warrick. Goldthwaite intrigued me as an artist who struggled to define her particular artistic style, hopping back-and-forth between schools and art ateliers, and fighting both with and against the occurrence of modernism. Alice Morgan Wright was one of my favorites for her political activism, commitment to suffrage and her utter inability to not be herself. I adored her. Lastly, I not only love the sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick’s work, but I also found her story to be an interesting and important counterpoint to the traditional “The Club is so wonderful“ narrative, which so many women espoused. The Club was great, for sure — but, as readers will see, Meta’s story shows that it wasn’t necessarily ideal for every American girl.
What do you think readers will take away from learning about this era in art history? Why is it relevant or important to today?
For me, the story of the Club is the story of a special place that protected and nurtured women, allowing them to follow their dreams and attain professional fulfillment, particularly as artists, for one of the first times in American history. And it feels relevant today! In an age where women’s rights are being undermined once again, The Club feels like a reminder that we need access to safe places where women can be supportive and nurtured to pursue their goals and wishes.
This article was originally published on June 5 2025.
