In 2012, New York–based French artist Prune Nourry began spending long stretches in China. There, she started working with artisans on “Terracotta Daughters” (2012–2030), a response to gender selection in the country: 108 life-size clay sculptures modeled on eight orphan girls. The series was exhibited worldwide before being buried in 2015 at a secret Chinese location, awaiting its excavation in 2030.
It’s typical of Nourry’s work, which is rooted in clay but also includes large installations and collaborative international projects. Her subject is women’s fates in an age of fast-moving science, from sex selection to genetic engineering, and the women history forgets or mistreats. To explore these ideas, she turns to multiple disciplines, enlisting ethnologists, geneticists, archaeologists, and artisans.
She learned the value of building creative relationships in her own flesh 10 years ago, when breast cancer sent her from specialist to specialist in search of the “whole picture, not only of the whole body but also of the soul,” she told Artsy. Inspired by the figure 8 for its symbolism across many cultures, she often echoes that number in her series. This fall, the artist is bringing these themes together, considering a chapter of sculpture’s history that was left out with a new commission at the Petit Palais during Paris Art Week 2026.
For “Visionaries,” Nourry spent time in the museum’s collections with the exhibition’s curator, Sixtine de Saint-Léger, then began 18 months’ research with four art historians. It turned out that only 4 percent of the works had been made by women, and among those, only four were sculptors. A statistic in stark contrast with the many representations of women as models, especially nudes, throughout the museum. “I asked myself if women artists really didn’t exist or if it was a matter of the way they were considered, and what would happen if we changed our perspective?”
Across her career, Nourry has focused on sculpting female figures to draw attention to their plight. And she likes to think for the long term. “We live in times where everything is accelerated, with this impression of sprinting constantly. But sculpting takes time,” she said. Next year she will unveil Les Vénus dionysiennes (2024–present), a public commission at Saint-Denis Pleyel station in Paris, in collaboration with architect Kengo Kuma: 108 sculptures of women evoking Paleolithic representations. “The project started three years ago, but it’s meant for longer than that,” she said, adding that duration also applies to relationships, since she values trust and the search for meaning. Every project, she said, “has to make sense not only for me, but for the people who are experiencing it.”
In 2024, Nourry co-founded the Catharsis Arts Foundation with Claude Grunitzky. Its founding project, “Statues Also Breathe,” is a series of 108 terra-cotta portraits of the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 made in collaboration with 108 Nigerian students. Like all her projects, it relies on collaboration, combined disciplines, and duration. “Artists are to society what dreams are to the brain,” she said. “They keep society sane, translating messages through symbols, keys to the collective unconscious and the mysteries of life.”
Her homage at the Petit Palais is 18 busts in plaster and marble, of women sculptors who lived in Paris between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “It was a lot of pressure, especially in terms of interpretation,” she said. She had very few archival images to work from, mostly official portraits where expressions and poses are stern. Together with the historians, she looked at the women’s life stories and choices, thinking through three themes: motherhood, social engagement, and healing. Some are barely known. Others, like Sarah Bernhardt and Camille Claudel, are already famous. All of them aren’t talked about enough. Here are a few of them.
Hélène Bertaux
(1825–1909)
An encounter with a sculpture by Bertaux in the collections of the Petit Palais is probably what birthed the whole project, Nourry explained. Bertaux advocated for women’s right to public education and founded the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors in 1881. “It was at once surprising and splendid, realizing that I had never heard of her and had never studied her in school, yet it was thanks to her that I was able to attend school at all.”
Jane Poupelet
(1874–1932)
A fervent feminist and antiestablishment figure, Poupelet began her career under the male pseudonym Simon de la Vergne. She is best known for her bronze female nudes, which celebrated bodies free of the corset. She is also known for making prosthetics for disfigured World War I veterans, as noted by Nourry who mentioned that Poupelet: “created masks for Les Gueules Cassées [broken faces].”
Selma Hortense Burke
(1900–1995)
“I made an exception to our [mostly 19th century] time bracket by adding a portrait of Selma Hortense Burke,” said Nourry. “I love her work, and I thought it was fascinating that an African American woman was making sculptures at the time, and was recognized for it.” Burke is known for her portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin Roosevelt. “She was also making sculptures of babies, there is this extraordinary photo of her where she’s seen in her studio making a sculpture of an infant, and the likeness is so surprising it’s hard to tell which is which,” added Nourry.
Jingyuan Wang
(1884 or 1893–ca. 1970)
Nourry was taken with the work of Jingyuan Wang, a pioneering Chinese sculptor celebrated for her nudes of both men and women, a groundbreaking and controversial choice for a woman artist in 1920s China. “Her work is remarkable! When I look at it I see flesh. Her technique is extraordinary, and beyond technique, her sculptures exude life. It’s crazy that there is so little information about her, even though she was quite recognized at the time. She studied in Lyon then got a scholarship and went to Paris. Back in China she was a professor in Beijing,” said Nourry.
Sarah Bernhardt
(1844–1923)
A famous actress, Sarah Bernhardt was also a painter and, as is even less well known, practiced sculpture for 20 years. She successfully exhibited accomplished marble works at the Paris Salon and even in London. Nourry and the researchers were most interested in her relationship to motherhood—one of the lenses used to study these biographies along the themes of “care/healing” and “social engagement”: “Despite having a son whom she loved deeply, she managed to have a great career, leaving him for months with family while on tours,” said Nourry, adding that it proved mothers at that time could also have careers.
Camille Claudel
(1864–1943)
Although well known for her work today, Camille Claudel struggled to keep her career afloat while in a relationship with Auguste Rodin, whom she also worked for as a studio assistant. Despite showing great promise since her teens, letters found by Nourry’s team show that she was regularly asking her gallerists and her brother for financial help.
Berthe Girardet
(1861–1948)
Born in Marseille, France, into the city’s grande bourgeoisie, Berthe Girardet severed ties with her family’s tradition in the trading business to become a sculptor and trained academically in Marseille and Paris. She was recognized for her portraits of common people and of her loved ones. “She lost her son at war, which deeply influenced her work: she made many sculptures on the theme of motherhood,” said Nourry.
Cléopâtre Bourdelle Sévastos
(1882–1972)
The exhibition includes three hollow, concave portraits. These are allegorical references to groups of women from this period, like the art students, women committed to mental institutions that Nourry tried to imagine, and those Nourry calls the “legacy women,” who dedicated their lives to their husbands’ careers. For this last group, Nourry chose to represent Cléopâtre Bourdelle Sévastos, a promising sculptor who gave up her craft to run her husband’s studio instead, and did so “with a master’s hand,” said Nourry.
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