Little Stories of Great Women Artists is an original project of playful and educational animated videos for children from the age of 7 and older. The objective of each episode? To shed light on the life and work of a woman artist from the 19th or 20th century in a three-minutes video. Imagined by screenwriter Sophie Caron, each story conveys the originality of an artist’s approach, their importance within an artistic movement, certain significant biographical stories, as well as difficulties that the artist may have encountered in her practice.

In a landscape where children’s publications and activities about art privilege male artists, this new and unique project intends for younger audiences to be able to identify important figures beyond all gender stereotypes. Through the discovery of these women artists, we hope to invite as many people as possible to discover the emotion that art can bring.

In this episode, we retrace the steps of the Haitian artist Luce Turnier, from Port-au-Prince to New York to Paris.

Born in 1924, Turnier studied at the Haitian Art Center, becoming one of its youngest members as well as one of the few women to be enrolled there. Considered a pioneer of Modernism, Luce Turnier’s style was greatly influenced by her travels throughout the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. Her artworks reflect a rich mix of cultures and a modernity nourished by these different influences.

Despite her significant artistic contributions, Luce Turnier has often remained in the shadows of the Haitian art scene because of her gender and her estrangement from voudou art. At the same time, her Haitian origins mean that she is rarely included in discussions about the Modernist circles in France and the United States, of which she was a part.