An exhibition at Paris’s Petit Palais museum is seeking to bring recognition to overlooked women sculptors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artist behind the project was prompted by the discovery that only about 4 percent of the museum’s collection was created by women, despite a majority of sculptures depicting female figures.
The exhibition, titled "Visionaries," highlights nearly two dozen female sculptors whose contributions have largely been forgotten. To prepare, the artist collaborated with researchers from the Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions (Aware), compiling around 60 biographies from archival letters, journals, and photographs. This research informed the creation of 18 busts, sculpted over 18 months, based on available images and personal records. Some sculptures required interpretive reconstruction due to limited source material.
The show opens with a 17-meter-long outdoor sculpture called "Mothership," which merges the imagery of a pregnant woman with that of a shipwreck. Inside, visitors encounter the busts of these pioneering women, the largest standing 3.5 meters tall, alongside a curated dialogue between the artist’s previous works and the museum’s permanent collection. The installation includes recurring motifs of marble eyes placed on pedestals throughout the space, symbolizing new ways of seeing and engaging with these artists' histories.
Among the women featured are Camille Claudel, a sculptor who only gained widespread recognition decades after her 1943 death, largely due to her association with Auguste Rodin; Sarah Bernhardt, better known as an actress but who also created life-size and monumental sculptures; and Hélène Bertaux, whose activism was instrumental in opening public art schools to women in France. The artist noted personal resonance with Bertaux’s story, having studied wood sculpture at a public institution once closed to women.
The exhibition also emphasizes the cultural diversity present in Paris at the time, spotlighting figures such as Marie Bashkirtseff, a Ukrainian artist who died young but left a detailed journal, and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, an Afro-Indigenous sculptor from Rhode Island who endured financial hardship to pursue her career in Paris.
Historically, women were barred from attending the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts until 1897 and often had to enroll in private academies, such as La Grande Chaumière or Colarossi, where male instructors like Antoine Bourdelle taught. Many female students remain unknown today, a gap addressed in the exhibition through three "negative" sculptures shaped like molds representing distinct groups: art students, women institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals (including Claudel), and those who ceased their own artistic work to support their husbands’ careers.
The artist described sculpture as a medium that can embody both known and absent figures, drawing attention to stories sidelined by traditional art history. The recurring theme of eyes throughout the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider historical narratives and recognize the debt owed to these women’s artistic legacies.