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A 10-minute documentary by artist Prune Nourry and Google Arts & Culture uses generative AI to recreate the studios of women sculptors who worked in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The film accompanies Nourry’s “Visionaries” exhibition at the Petit Palais, which runs from October 20, 2026, through January 30, 2027.
Artist Prune Nourry and Google Arts & Culture have made a 10-minute documentary using generative AI to reconstruct the studios of women sculptors who worked in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The film accompanies Nourry’s exhibition “Visionaries” at the Petit Palais, which opened October 20 and presents monumental plaster portraits of 18 historical women sculptors.
The documentary was made with film director Vincent Lorca following a year of research by three art historians. The team collected letters, journals and photographic portraits to develop the historical material for the film. Google says few photographs of the sculptors’ actual workspaces survive, limiting the visual record available to reconstruct their studios.
Lynn Cherny, a creative technologist-in-residence at the Google Arts & Culture Lab, used the company’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 create 3D models from archival photographs and animate camera paths, allowing viewers to move virtually through the reconstructed spaces.
In another sequence conceived by Nourry and Lorca, image editing makes female students gradually disappear from an archival photograph of Antoine Bourdelle’s studio, leaving the men in the image. The film is installed in the museum galleries alongside the exhibition; Google Arts & Culture also published a behind-the-scenes trailer online.
Restoring Artists to the Historical Record
The project addresses a gap between women’s documented participation in artistic life and their later visibility in accounts of art history. Google’s report says women sculptors in Paris faced social constraints and limited access to training, while women were often represented as models or muses rather than recognized as artists. Recreating the studios gives visitors a way to imagine the working environments behind that underrepresented history.
The film’s methods also show both the potential and limits of digital reconstruction in museum interpretation. AI-generated studio scenes are visual reconstructions, not surviving photographs or direct evidence of exactly how each workspace looked. Their value lies in helping communicate archival research while making clear that the images are constructed from incomplete records.
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A Paris Exhibition and Its Research
“Visionaries” opened at the Petit Palais on October 20, 2026, coinciding with Art Basel Paris. The exhibition features monumental plaster portraits made by Nourry and celebrates the creative legacies of 18 historical female sculptors. The documentary expands on their lives through a combination of archival research and digitally recreated settings.
The project focuses on women who lived and worked in Paris during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its source material includes written records and portraits, but the scarcity of photographs showing their studios means the film cannot simply document those spaces as they were. Google describes the AI work as a way to bring the artists’ work environments to life for the documentary.
“Because few historical photos of their actual workspaces exist”
— Google Arts & Culture, in its October 21, 2026 report
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Limits of the Studio Reconstructions
The report does not detail which archival images or other records informed each individual studio reconstruction, or how the team checked specific visual details against historical evidence. It also does not identify the generative AI and image-editing models by version. The recreated spaces should therefore be understood as AI-assisted visual interpretations, rather than verified photographic records of the artists’ studios.
The source material does not provide further detail about how the three art historians’ research shaped each scene, or whether the film will be distributed beyond its installation at the Petit Palais and the online trailer. Those points remain unspecified in the announcement.
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Exhibition Runs Through January 2027
“Visionaries” is scheduled to remain at the Petit Palais through January 30, 2027, with the documentary installation shown in the museum galleries. Google Arts & Culture has also made a behind-the-scenes trailer available online. The announcement provides no further dates or plans for screenings after the exhibition closes.
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Key Questions
What is the documentary about?
The 10-minute film explores women sculptors who worked in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using AI-generated studio reconstructions alongside archival material.
Who made the film?
Artist Prune Nourry and Google Arts & Culture collaborated with film director Vincent Lorca. Google’s creative technologist-in-residence Lynn Cherny worked on the AI-assisted studio imagery.
Which sculptors are featured?
The report names Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jane Poupelet and Camille Claudel as artists whose studios were recreated. Nourry’s exhibition presents portraits celebrating 18 historical women sculptors.
When and where can visitors see “Visionaries”?
The exhibition is at the Petit Palais in Paris from October 20, 2026, through January 30, 2027. The documentary is installed in the museum galleries alongside it.
Are the reconstructed studios historical photographs?
No. The studio scenes are AI-assisted reconstructions made because few historical photographs of the artists’ workspaces exist. They are visual interpretations, not photographs documenting the rooms as they looked.
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