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A 10-minute film made by Prune Nourry, director Vincent Lorca and Google Arts & Culture uses generative AI to reconstruct the studios of historical women sculptors in Paris. It accompanies Nourry’s “Visionaries” exhibition, which opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, 2026, and is scheduled to run through January 30, 2027.
Prune Nourry and Google Arts & Culture have released a 10-minute documentary using generative AI to reconstruct the studios of women sculptors who lived and worked in Paris. The film accompanies “Visionaries,” an exhibition of Nourry’s plaster portraits of 18 historical women artists, which opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, 2026.
The project was developed with film director Vincent Lorca after a year of research by three art historians. They gathered letters, journals and photographic portraits relating to the sculptors. According to Google’s account, few historical photographs of the artists’ actual workspaces survive, leaving the team to use those records to build visual interpretations rather than reproduce studios documented in complete photographic detail.
Lynn Cherny, a creative technologist-in-residence at the Google Arts & Culture Lab, used Google’s generative AI and image-editing models to create studio scenes for artists including Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jane Poupelet and Camille Claudel. A custom tool built with Google Gemini was used to make 3D models from archival photographs and animate camera paths, allowing viewers to move virtually through the reconstructed spaces.
A separate sequence, conceived by Nourry and Lorca, edits an archival photograph of Antoine Bourdelle’s studio so that female students gradually fade from view, leaving the men in the image. Google describes the sequence as a visual representation of how women artists were erased from historical narratives. The film is installed in the museum galleries; a behind-the-scenes trailer is available online through Google Arts & Culture.
Making Women Sculptors Visible
The project joins an exhibition of portraits to a digital interpretation of spaces that are poorly documented. That matters because studios can show artists at work and place them within the networks and training environments of their time. Here, the film gives visitors a way to imagine those settings while the exhibition foregrounds 18 women sculptors whose contributions, Google says, were long obscured by a view of women mainly as models or muses.
The reconstructions are also a reminder of the difference between recovering evidence and visualizing what evidence cannot show. The film’s AI-generated spaces may help audiences engage with the artists’ histories, but they are interpretations based on archival material, not surviving photographs of each studio. That distinction is central to understanding what the technology adds—and what it cannot establish.
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From Archival Research to Virtual Studios
Google situates the artists in late 19th- and early 20th-century Paris, where women sculptors worked amid social restrictions and limited access to artistic training. The company says their roles as practicing artists were often pushed into the background while art history cast women primarily as subjects for male artists.
The film’s research drew on letters, journals and portraits, but the source material does not say that these records included detailed views of every studio. Generative AI and image editing were used to turn the available material into scenes viewers can move through. The work therefore combines historical research with visual reconstruction, rather than presenting a newly discovered archive of studio photographs.
The “Visionaries” exhibition opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, 2026, alongside Art Basel Paris. It is scheduled to remain on view until January 30, 2027, with the documentary installed in the museum galleries.
““Because few historical photos of their actual workspaces exist,” the team used generative AI and image-editing models to bring the studios to life.”
— Google Arts & Culture, in its October 21, 2026 report
sculpting tools for clay and plaster
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What the Reconstructions Can Show
Google’s report does not identify the archival source or evidence used for each individual studio scene, nor does it provide a detailed account of how the team checked generated visual elements against historical records. It is therefore unclear which features are directly supported by specific documents and which were added to make the spaces visually coherent.
The source also does not describe the models’ technical limitations, whether historians reviewed each reconstructed detail, or how the film signals uncertainty to viewers. The reported lack of studio photographs means the scenes should be understood as AI-assisted interpretations, not confirmed views of the sculptors’ rooms.
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Exhibition Runs Through January
The “Visionaries” exhibition is scheduled to continue at the Petit Palais through January 30, 2027, with Nourry’s film installation available in the museum galleries. Google Arts & Culture has also published a behind-the-scenes trailer online. The source does not announce additional screenings, new research releases or further exhibition dates.
Visitors and viewers can assess the project through the material presented in the film and exhibition. Any further clarification about the reconstruction process—including the source material and review methods for specific scenes—would help distinguish documented studio details from AI-generated interpretation.
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Key Questions
What is the project about?
It is a 10-minute documentary made by Prune Nourry, director Vincent Lorca and Google Arts & Culture. It uses generative AI to create virtual reconstructions of studios associated with historical women sculptors in Paris.
Which artists’ studios appear in the film?
Google names Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jane Poupelet and Camille Claudel as artists whose studios are brought to life in the project.
Are the studio scenes historical photographs?
No. Google says few historical photographs of the sculptors’ actual workspaces exist. The film uses archival material and AI-assisted visual reconstruction, so the scenes are interpretations rather than confirmed photographs of the studios.
Where and when can audiences see the exhibition?
“Visionaries” opened at the Petit Palais in Paris on October 20, 2026, and is scheduled to run through January 30, 2027. The film is installed in the museum galleries, and a behind-the-scenes trailer is online through Google Arts & Culture.
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