Cet ouvrage fait suite à la tenue d’un colloque international pluridisciplinaire organisé les 19 et 20 septembre 2019 au Centre Pompidou et au musée d’Orsay, à Paris, en partenariat avec l’association AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions). Intitulé Faire œuvre. La formation et la professionnalisation des artistes femmes aux XIXe et XXe siècles, le colloque entendait dresser un état actuel de la recherche sur l’accession des artistes femmes aux structures d’enseignement, en France et à l’étranger, qu’il s’agisse des ateliers, des académies privées ou des écoles publiques.
In this conversation, Béatrice Casadesus looks back on her vocation and training as an artist. She explains how she overcame some of the prejudices she faced at the start of her career, such as the disapproval of a woman pursuing a career in the arts. She discusses her relationships with her teachers, family and the intellectuals with whom she chose to surround herself in order to make her way into the art world and find the fellowship she needed to practice her art. She also tells the sometimes harsh but always enlightening story of the contests she took part in and won, of the state commissions she received thanks to the “1% for art” programme, and of her years as a professor of architecture. The interview highlights the main stages of her artistic and aesthetic project, which remains true to her vision and material choices, as well as the success of her paintings, which are collected and purchased by museums and private collectors in France and abroad.