Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911–1984), Maria Martins (1894–1973) and Isabelle Waldberg (1911–1990) were each in their own way, key figures of the international Surrealist art movement between 1930 and 1960. For the first time, In Her Hands celebrates the rediscovery of their art.
These three female artists were part of the international art scene from Paris and Copenhagen to New York. Innovative, unconventional and resolute, they were vital in developing the surrealist visual language of the time. The characteristically formal language of the Danish artist Sonja Ferlov Mancoba was strongly influenced by non-European art, but also by the CoBrA group of artists. The Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins interwove afro brazilian myths of the Amazonas with the formal language of modernism in her organic, figurative objects. Isabelle Waldberg's multifaceted oeuvre ranges from filigree linear wooden structures to abstract bronze sculptures and collages.
The exhibition brings together a selection of sculptures in dialogue with one another in a design that draws inspiration from the staging methods used during the artists' lifetimes to display their works to showcase their expansive spatial presence.