National Year of Reading – Interview with Hettie Judah
Our next interview for the National Year of Reading is with writer, curator and broadcaster, Hettie Judah...
What was the first non-fiction/arts book you remember reading, and what was its impact on you?
I can remember finding a book of Mervyn Peake's illustrations in the school library, which fascinated me - so dark and insightful. And as a teenager being fixated and delightfully scandalised by a book of Aubrey Beardsley's prints that I found in a second-hand shop. Like many people, I think the transformative book in terms of actual art writing was John Berger's Ways of Seeing. I still have my yellowing Penguin paperback, and have re-read it many times since.
What’s the latest art/design/other book you’ve read?
I'm doing research for a book of my own, so I've been reading a lot of fantastic books on the history of religion - among them Diarmaid MchCulloch's Lower than the Angels (2025) and Per Faxneld's Satanic Feminism (2014). I think the last art-book proper I read was the Pompidou Centre's catalogue on Suzanne Valadon - I loved the exhibition earlier this year. Wouldn't it be great if there was a well-illustrated book available on her in English! (hint, hint…)
What is your favourite Lund Humphries book, and why?
I don't have much involvement with the business side of the art world, so Georgina Adam's Dark Side of the Boom (2017) was an absolutely jaw-dropping read for me. I've been dipping back into Victoria Carruthers's fantastic Dorothea Tanning: Transformations (2020) again recently.
What is currently on your to-read list, and why does it appeal to you?
While I'm in the middle of research work I don't get much time to read for pleasure, so when all the research is done, I'm looking forward to reading Maggie Nelson's Pathemata, which a friend gave me for Christmas.
If you were starting a star-studded art/architecture book club, who, from any era, would you like to invite?
I spent a lot of the autumn going through the letters of Sylvia Sleigh and Lawrence Alloway - they feel so much like friends already that I'd love to meet them. They met while studying art history, and their love letters are full of discussion about their lectures and essays. They'd be perfect companions for a book club.
Hettie Judah is a writer and curator. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Frieze and The Times Literary Supplement, and writes a monthly column for Apollo magazine. Her writing on art can also be found in Art Quarterly, Art Monthly, ArtReview and other publications with 'art' in the title. Between 2016 and 2024 she was the chief art critic for the British daily newspaper The i.
Hettie curated the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which toured venues in the UK between 2024 and 2025, before transferring to VISUAL in Ireland, where it ran until early 2026. As a broadcaster she can be heard (and sometimes seen) on programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and the BBC TV arts series A Life In Ten Pictures.
She is the author of a volume in the Hot Topics in the Art World series: How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, 2022).
We interviewed Hettie in early 2026. She is currently working on a major book on art and women’s desire, to be published by Thames & Hudson in autumn 2027.