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The forgotten brilliance of Hélène de Beauvoir, sister of Simone

She was a painter ‘ahead of her time’, counting Picasso as a fan. But Hélène de Beauvoir was always overshadowed by her famous sister. Now, with a show opening in Britain, the artist is finally receiving her due

Photograph: Hélène de Beauvoir, courtesy Amar GalleryThe show is called The Woman Destroyed, after the 1967 collection of three stories by Simone that, other than Hélène’s portraits of her sister, was the siblings’ sole artistic collaboration. A rare first edition of the book will be part of the exhibition, along with 13 oil paintings and nine watercolours spanning Hélène’s career – her journey from the figurative to the abstract, often with strong feminist and environmentalist themes. Her gender was undoubtedly a factor – but, says Monteil, it was also largely a result of her husband’s employment taking her away from Paris and the centre of the art world, where part of the job was “going to parties and meeting wealthy people who could support them, organise exhibitions, events and so forth.

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