Prune Nourry at the Petit Palais: The Women Sculptors Art History Forgot

With “Visionnaires”, on view at the Petit Palais until 24 January 2027, Prune Nourry brings renewed visibility to eighteen women sculptors of the 19th and 20th centuries. Through monumental portraits and a dialogue with the museum’s collections, the artist explores how women have been recognised — or written out — of art history.

Women Artists Long Left in the Shadows

They sculpted, exhibited, received commissions and, in some cases, achieved recognition during their lifetimes. Yet their place in art history often remains marginal. At the Petit Palais, one figure illustrates this imbalance: barely 4% of the works in the museum’s collections were created by women.

This striking disparity forms the starting point for Prune Nourry’s “Visionnaires”. Invited to take over the museum’s spaces, the French artist gives renewed presence to eighteen women sculptors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose careers reveal the obstacles women faced in gaining access to artistic training and recognition.

Camille Claudel, Käthe Kollwitz and Sarah Bernhardt appear alongside lesser-known figures such as Hélène Bertaux, Jane Poupelet and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. Their legacies have not all suffered the same degree of neglect, but their stories reveal a history of sculpture long written predominantly by and about men.

Faces Reclaiming Their Place

To honour these pioneering women, Prune Nourry has created eighteen sculpted portraits, some reaching 3.5 metres in height. Their simplified forms, made primarily from plaster or aerated concrete, contrast with the realism of many of the museum’s historical works.

One detail is particularly striking: their white marble eyes with black pupils. Inspired by the polychrome statuary in the Petit Palais collections, they lend the faces an unusual presence. The gaze becomes a central feature of the exhibition, inviting visitors to look anew at women who have too often been overlooked.

Some portraits are created in negative relief. Rather than emerging from the material, the face is revealed through its imprint. This sculptural choice evokes absence, the disappearance of visual representations and, more broadly, the gaps in collective memory.

The portrayal of Camille Claudel is particularly meaningful. Nourry depicts her standing, dressed in her sculptor’s work smock. Far removed from the image of Rodin’s muse or assistant, to which she was long reduced, Claudel is presented in her own right as a creative artist.

Hélène Bertaux and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet: Two Struggles for Recognition

Behind these portraits lie remarkable stories of determination.

Hélène Bertaux (1825–1909) devoted part of her career to defending women’s access to the artistic professions. In 1881, she founded the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors. Her campaigning helped secure women’s admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1897 and their eligibility to compete for the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1903.

Her sculpture Psyché sous l’empire du mystère, held in the Petit Palais collections, provided the initial inspiration for Prune Nourry’s project.

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890–1960) represents another form of resistance. The first African American woman to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, in 1918, she continued her artistic training in Paris despite discrimination and severe financial hardship. Her work, deeply rooted in the human figure, reflects her determination to create in the face of material and social obstacles.

Through these individual stories, the exhibition reminds us that the absence of women from museum collections does not imply an absence of artistic production. It also reveals the unequal conditions under which their artistic legacies were shaped.

A Dialogue Between Contemporary Sculpture and Historical Collections

“Visionnaires” unfolds throughout the Petit Palais, from the sculpture galleries to the garden and the permanent collections.

On the museum’s forecourt, Mothership, a monumental installation measuring seventeen metres in length, welcomes visitors. Made from weathering steel, the structure simultaneously evokes a pregnant woman, a ship’s hull and a whale skeleton. It extends Nourry’s ongoing exploration of the body, motherhood and the forms of living organisms.

Inside the museum, around twenty earlier works by the artist enter into dialogue with the historical collections. Connections between materials, forms and scales open up new ways of interpreting the sculptures held by the Petit Palais.

This encounter between different periods is central to the exhibition: contemporary art becomes a means of reconsidering the narratives inherited from the past.

Challenging Oblivion, Rethinking Artistic Legacy

With “Visionnaires”, Prune Nourry offers far more than a gallery of portraits. She questions the ways in which institutions, collections and historical narratives shape artistic recognition.

The exhibition also reminds us that women artists’ visibility cannot be measured solely by their presence in museums. It requires recognition of their work, their artistic investigations and their contribution to the development of sculptural forms.

By placing these faces at the heart of the Petit Palais, Prune Nourry does more than seek to redress a historical omission. She reminds us that art history is never a definitive narrative: it is also shaped by those we choose to see.

Practical Information

“Visionnaires – Carte blanche à Prune Nourry”
Petit Palais, Paris
20 October 2026 – 24 January 2027
Curator: Sixtine de Saint-Léger

FAQ – Prune Nourry and the “Visionnaires” Exhibition