Quitterie Ithurbide was a teacher of sculpture based in Paris. Her interest in sculpture began at 18, when she attended the School of Fine Art in Paris, but she soon realized she was more interested in the three dimensional. She left to join a school of art and technology, graduating in stage and set design, and began to paint, sculpt and exhibit. As a teacher, one of her students had a serious illness and began to gradually lose her sight, and Quitterie watched on as the woman’s sense of touch started to become the main avenue for her to understand her surroundings. With this in mind, ten years ago she began making sculptures of well-known artworks for the visually impaired. The sculptures were intended to be placed alongside the original artworks in museums, to fight the exclusion of blind people from the world of art by allowing them to discover famous paintings through touch. Quitterie passed away in 2020, having dedicated so much of her life to teaching others and to helping people with disabilities experience so much more.
