Isabella Ducrot

Pretty Brilliant Women in the Arts

Article

No. 38 • June 2025

For generations, the story of art has been told through a singular lens. When the first editions of canonical texts like Janson’s History of Art and Gombrich’s The Story of Art were published, they featured zero women artists. The Pretty Brilliant: Women in the Arts series aims to make whole what has long been a one-sided story. In these issues, featuring 583 artists, we celebrate women who have always been creating, innovating, and inspiring, like Isabella Ducrot.

Fig 1. Isabelle Ducrot in her studio in Rome

Isabella Ducrot

‘In old age, you can have courageous feelings and free gestures.’

text: Ksenia Kwiecinska

Isabella Ducrot (Italy, b. 1931), who humbly introduces herself as ‘an old lady from Naples’, has quietly emerged in recent years as a contemporary revelation. Her fascination with everyday objects, her deep love for textiles, and her contemplative sense of beauty all converge in large-scale mixed-media works, which she nearly always creates while standing upright before the canvas.

‘I like making works that are seemingly very fragile, a bit ruined, but that are in reality very strong,’ Ducrot says. With her brush often tied to a stick, she traces soft yet energetic gestures of ink and paint across paper or fabric, bringing to life a wide array of subjects – from embraces (Tendernesses, 2024), to tree-filled landscapes (Bella Terra, 2021), to Tibetan pots (Pots, 2023). Her work always finds a way to remain fantastical yet familiar, restrained yet refreshing, partially present yet suspended — evoking a longing for something not quite lost.

Isabella Ducrot, Bella Terra XXXI, 2020, mixed media on paper, 31 × 45 cm | © Isabella Ducrot, courtesy Galerie Gisela Capitain Cologne, photo: Mareike Tocha

Fig 2. Isabella Ducrot, Bella Terra XXXI, 2020, mixed media on paper, 31 × 45 cm | © Isabella Ducrot, courtesy Galerie Gisela Capitain Cologne, photo: Mareike Tocha

The artist, who is turning ninety-four, began her artistic practice only in her fif- ties. Age, she says, has shaped her work in two profound ways. First, it has brought a liberating sense of finality. In her memoir Women’s Life, she writes: ‘At this stage of life, you can no longer lie. You cannot help but say things that are true… Let the truth be sobbed out. Gentle has my time been flowing, whispering to me without malice. There is no tomorrow, there is no tomorrow.’ Second, as is often the case in the life of a wife and mother, Ducrot was able to devote herself fully to her art only much later in life, admitting now: ‘I think life, for women, truly begins at sixty’.

Isabella Ducrot is featured in See All This #38: Pretty Brilliant Women in the Arts Vol. III. Order a copy here.