Phaidon announces the release of Great Women Sculptors
Phaidon is pleased to announce Great Women Sculptors, an unprecedented compilation of more than 300 groundbreaking women sculptors spanning 64 countries and 500 years. This substantial volume follows the tremendous success of Phaidon’s Great Women Artists (2019) and Great Women Painters (2022), presenting a new and compelling narrative of creativity, resilience, and ingenuity across art history within the medium of sculpture.
Mária Bartuszová, Untitled, 1985. Picture credit: © The Archive of Maria Bartuszová, Košice. Courtesy The Estate of Maria Bartuszová, Košice, and Alison Jacques, London. Photo: Michael Brzezinski (page 38) Plaster and string, 41 3/8 × 52 3/4 × 15 3/8 in. (105 × 134 × 39 cm), Tate, London
Between 2008 and 2018, work created by women accounted for only 2% of the $196.6 billion generated by art auctions (artnet 2019). Of the highest auction prices paid for a sculpture within that same period, none were produced by a woman. In 2021, the Journal of Cultural Economics reported that women artists make up only 3–5% of major permanent art collections in the U.S. and Europe. In 2023, however, Simone Leigh’s bronze sculpture Stick sold for $2.7 million at Christie’s, and Louise Bourgeois shattered auction records in 2019 with her $32.1 million sale of Spider. Since 2019, four of the past five Metropolitan Museum of Art façade commissions were awarded to women sculptors, and renowned institutions have staged exhibitions dedicated to sculptural work produced by women. Today, Great Women Sculptors not only emphasizes women’s presence in creating sculpture throughout art history but builds off of these recent shifts in the art sphere.
Organized alphabetically by surname, the book gathers some of the world’s most exceptional sculptors across time and space, including beloved luminaries such as Louise Bourgeois, Agnes Denes, Gego, and Ruth Asawa, as well as contemporary trailblazers like Wangechi Mutu, Sarah Sze, and Lee Bul. Each entry is accompanied by an illustration of an exemplary sculpture and a short explanatory text to offer a comprehensive glimpse into the artist’s practice. An extensive glossary of art movements, styles, materials, and techniques further enriches the book’s subject matter, ensuring that even readers new to art history can easily navigate the book.
Rana Begum, No. 1048 Mesh, 2020. Picture credit: © the artist / Courtesy © Begum Studio and Kate MacGarry Gallery. Photo: Angus Mill (page 39) Powder-coated galvanized mesh, 153 1/2 × 232 1/4 × 110 1/4 in. (390 × 590 × 280 cm)
In her introductory essay, curator, writer, and editor Lisa Le Feuvre contextualizes these varied approaches to sculpture and how they manifest in the book’s featured artists. “Sculpture is both a material object and an invitation to perceive,” Le Feuvre writes. “Sculpture is wonderfully in and of the world. [It] demands an encounter, insisting that it takes place in time and space.” “Women sculptors are everywhere,” Le Feuvre continues in her introduction.
Great Women Sculptors is a celebration of this fact, insisting upon the existence of women sculptors throughout art history as well as revealing how evocative sculpture can be. Packaged in a striking red jacket with fluid, dimensional shapes, this volume invites readers to discover and engage with sculptural works created by some of the world’s greatest women artists.
Yayoi Kusama, Flowers That Bloom Tomorrow, 2010. Picture credit: © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy the artist, Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro. (page 172) Fiberglass reinforced plastic, metal, and urethane paint, 78 3/4 × 133 7/8 × 78 3/4 in. (200 × 340 × 200 cm)
ABOUT THE WRITER
Lisa Le Feuvre is a curator, writer, and editor. She is inaugural Executive Director of Holt/ Smithson Foundation, the artist-endowed foundation dedicated to the creative legacies of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. Between 2010 and 2017. Le Feuvre was Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute, directing the research component of the largest artist-endowed foundation in Europe, leading programs of education, research, collections, publications, and exhibitions focused on sculptural thinking. Le Feuvre has written and contributed to many books, including Nancy Holt: Inside/Outside published by Monacelli Press.
Helen Escobedo, Eclipse from the series Muros Dinámicos (Dynamic Walls), 1968. Picture credit: © the artist / Courtesy Proyectos Monclova. Photo: Ramiro Chaves (page 91) Lacquered wood, 79 1/8 × 29 7/8 × 28 3/4 in. (201 × 76 × 73 cm), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
ABOUT PHAIDON
Phaidon is the premier global publisher of the creative arts with over 1,500 titles in print. They work with the world’s most influential artists, chefs, writers, and thinkers to produce innovative books on art, photography, design, architecture, fashion, food and travel, and illustrated books for children. Phaidon is headquartered in London and New York City.