Ep. 42 Oh the Humanity!

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Today best friends Milena & Megan cover Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner who helped discover nuclear fission & Mexican painter, poet & artist muse Nahui Olin, also known as Carmen Mondragón

Nahui Olin

Dying in near obscurity in 1978, Nahui Olin has seen a resurgence of interest & appreciated in the last two decades. Previously only remembered as an artists’ muse, Nahui’s creative work is now being fully realized as model, poet and painter.
Today Megan covers how Nahui navigated the male-dominated creative scene of Mexico City and later faced backlash for her uncompromising personality. Taking her name from an Aztec concept of cosmic disruption, Nahui Olin proved to be a force to be reckoned with in her lifetime.

Selected Works
A favorite subject to paint were cats – distinct of her work is the stylized enlargement of the eyes
Nahui also frequently painted portraits of her romantic partner, pictured above her with sea captain Eugenio Agacino
Another portrait with Eugenio Agacino – featuring Nahui’s characteristic use of color, perspective and form
Nahui has been best known for her modeling, posing for photographers and painters alike in the 1920s & 30s
  • Maria Izquierdo – Mexican artist featured in ep. 36 of the podcast, lived & worked at the same time as Nahui
  • General Mondragón – Nahui’s father, important figure in the Mexican Revolution & inventor of Mexico’s first semiautomatic rifle
  • Edward Weston – American photographer who featured Nahui in his portraits
  • Dr. Atl – Born Gerardo Murillo Cornado. Writer, painter, political activist, and scientist who Nahui had a tremulous relationship with
  • Mexican Revolution – Took place from 1910 to 1920, resulted in a democratically govern Mexico
  • Mexicanidad – Term for the essence of being Mexican
  • Lecture about the idea of Nahui Ollin: view HERE
  • DnD campaign (in Spanish) which I’m pretty sure is about the concept of Nahui Olin: view HERE
  • Blog featuring cats in fine art work: view HERE
Wanna know more? Always a book for that (usually) (or article)

Celeida Tostes by editors Marcus de Lontra Costa & Raquel Silva. Available to read for free, this is a great collection of essays in both Portuguese and English

Nahui Olin by Adriana Malvido, this biography helped raise Nahui’s life from obscurity. Currently only available in Spanish

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner, like so many others we’ve covered, just wanted to work. A trailblazer in her field, even the Nazi’s couldn’t stifle the studies of Lise Meitner. Born 1878 in Vienna to a Jewish family, Lise pushed past traditional expectations of a girl in order to pursue an education. Today Milena shares the support system that helped Lise, how she became the first female German professor in physics & the contributions she made in nuclear physics.

As always, music by EeL