Prune Nourry - Visionnaires

Catalogue of the exhibition Prune Nourry: Visionaries, presented at the Petit Palais, Paris (22 October 2026 – 24 January 2027).

In the art world, women have long been confined to the roles of models or muses, reduced to bodies scrutinised by a male gaze. Questioning their persistent absence from both art history and museum collections, the artist Prune Nourry aims to shine a light on eighteen visionary women – little-known or forgotten sculptors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries – in order to restore a place to those whom history has overlooked.

This bilingual book aims to shine a light on female sculptors whom history has overlooked. Often confined to the roles of models or muses, heavily constrained by social norms and restricted access to training, they were unable to carve out a place for themselves in a field long dominated by male figures. Questioning their persistent absence from art-historical writings and from museum collections, Prune Nourry presents a previously unseen series of 18 busts highlighting female sculptors who lived between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, selected with the help of female researchers and curators for the quality of their artistic craft and the strength of their commitment. Among the artists represented are: Sarah Bernhardt (France), Hélène Bertaux (France), Selma Hortense Burke (United States), Camille Claudel (France), Daria Gamsaragan (Egypt), Käthe Kollwitz (Germany), Jane Poupelet (France), Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (United States), Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry (El Salvador)…