S4 Ep7: Penny Slinger: the feminist surrealist who was too erotic for the art world

In this very special live episode of The Last Bohemians, as part of Tate Lates, host Kate Hutchinson talks to actor, model and activist Lily Cole and Amrita Dhallu, Assistant Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, to discuss the life and work of Swedish pioneer of abstract art, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). Cole stars as one of De Fem ('The Five'), af Klint's Stockholm-based spiritual group who communed with spirits during séances in the late-1800s, in Lasse Hallström's brand new biopic of the artist. Dhallu is part of the team who put together Tate Modern's latest exhibition, boldly pairing Klint's extraordinary paintings with those of Piet Mondrian and asking us to consider the role that the natural world played in their work. Together, they consider how great women artists throughout history have been criminally overlooked, the legacy of af Klint's work today and why the af Klint renaissance is in full-swing.

An audio addendum to our LA season this year, The Last Bohemians hopped over to Santa Fé to meet the one and only Julia Cameron. Our series is dedicated to creative women who've lived their lives outside the norm. Julia has spent hers guiding others, with her creativity manual The Artist's Way. Very sadly, Julia had just lost her beloved dog when we arrived one afternoon, but she soldiered on. It's a whistlestop tour through her early days, breaking into the boys club of 1970s journalism, through her wild thirties in Hollywood married to Martin Scorsese, and eventually how she turned her life around by relocating to Georgia O'Keefe country, with its endlessly inspiring landscapes, and discussing addiction and recovery, harnessing the creativity spirit, sexism and psychic powers, how she helped to write Taxi Driver, her friendship with Eve Babitz and much more. Presenter and Exec Producer: Kate Hutchinson Editor: Georgie Rogers Photography and recording: Anna Kooris

French fashion disruptor Michéle Lamy is known as the wife of designer Rick Owens but she's is a chameleonic creative in her own right, forever staging art happenings and musical collaborations around the world, as well as co-designing the furniture for the Rick Owens line. She’s so in-demand that she’s tricky to track down: we did this interview partly in London, at Claridges, and partly at the Chateau Marmont in LA, where Michéle lived until the early 2000s. In those days, she was better known as the owner of cult Hollywood nightspot Les Deux Cafe, where she performed smoky jazz numbers in her thick drawl. Now Michéle is more nomadic, attracting beautiful freaks wherever she goes. A gothic style icon, her signature look is ink-dipped fingers, a line of kohl on her forehead and a cigarette always in her hand. Listen out for her many bangles too, which clank as she speaks about her style awakening in the Moroccan desert, why she loves collaboration and much more.

The Last Bohemians LA, supported by Audio-Technica, meets the “hyena of performance art”, whose transgressive spectacles of New Wave theatre, experimental noise, elaborate and crude costumes, chaotic rituals, gory props like pig heads and blood – lots of blood – built a cult following in the 1980s LA punk scene and predated Lady Gaga’s meat dress by decades

Lynn Castle was one of the first women in Hollywood to cut men’s hair and known as the first lady barber of LA – which she immortalised in her song 'The Lady Barber' with Nancy Sinatra producer Lee Hazlewood. Little is known about Lynn today but back in the acid-drenched 60s she hung out with movers and shakers of the era like Jim Morrison, the Byrds, Sonny Bono and Neil Young (and trimmed their long locks). In this episode of The Last Bohemians: LA, supported by Audio-Technica, she discusses her 'friendship' with Elvis, her series of almost-famous moments with Bob Dylan and the Stones, her positive outlook and life, and unexpectedly digs out letters from an old flame... Producer: Holly Fisher Presenter and Exec Producer: Kate Hutchinson