A Rebellious Mind

The history of art, like history in general, tends to remember the “great names”—those artists who created a rupture, a new movement, and left their mark on an era. While I agree that it is easier to study and appreciate a few individuals rather than a multitude, it then becomes a question of looking at how we choose and construct our icons, and by what criteria. This is an absolutely admirable task of historiography, one that has fascinated me since the beginning of my studies in art history, but that I would be quite incapable of carrying out here.

What I have observed in recent years, however, is an emerging tendency to bring to the foreground all the “forgotten” figures of art history, those whose names have been eclipsed by the greats, whether by their husbands, their sons, or their peers: women artists. Whether at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the MoMA in New York, or the Museo del Prado in Madrid, numerous exhibitions dedicated to women artists have opened their doors over the past decade.

Between 2023 and 2025, I took part in the installation of the traveling exhibition devoted to Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938), which was held at the Centre Pompidou in Metz, the Musée d’Arts de Nantes, the MNAC in Barcelona, and then, given the success of the previous editions, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, just before its closure for renovations.