Not On Display

A Graphic Novel About Female Nudes in the Louvre

Zelba, Alice Yang

$39.99

Hardback

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English

Helvetiq
01 September 2025

Sculpture

An entertaining satire of nudity in the Louvre, Not on Display is a deeply serious, award-winning graphic novel examining the history of the female body in art and our society.

When one of the greatest museums in the world gave the illustrator Zelba free rein to make a graphic novel about great art, she knew exactly what she would do: address a double standard. She'd seen the Louvre's halls filled with sexualized female bodies, ogled at by crowds and sometimes even groped, and wanted to turn the tables. What if, she dreamed, those naked bodies refused to be the objects of our gaze? What if the female nudes in the Louvre went on strike?

The result, a co-edition with Editions Louvre, is a critique of great artists and great museums. Awarded the prestigious Prix Sceneario and the Prix Artemisia in France, the pages are filled with unforgettable characters, such as a heroic cleaner who can speak to statues and a museum director who secretly offloads his work onto his sister. Featuring well-known masterpieces, this entertaining romp displays one of the world's greatest art collections in a whole new light.

By: Zelba
Translated by: Alice Yang
Imprint: Helvetiq
Country of Publication: Switzerland
Dimensions: Height: 307mm, Width: 231mm,
ISBN: 9783039640843
ISBN 10: 3039640844
Pages: 128
Publication Date: 01 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Wiebke Petersen, aka Zelba, was born in West Germany in 1973. Before becoming an illustrator, she was world junior rowing champion. In 2019, she published her first book, Dans le meme bateau, an autobiographical account of her experience as a top sportswoman in East Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Two years later, she returned with another autobiographical story, Mes mauvaises filles, about the right to die with dignity. With Le Grand Incident, she offers us a 'fantasticomic' tale of the sexualization of the female body in art. Alice Yang is a PhD student in French at Yale University. Her translation ofAbounding Freedom, a collection of prose poetry by Julien Gracq, was published by World Poetry Books in 2024. She divides her time between New Haven, Conneticut, and Lyon, France.

Reviews for Not On Display: A Graphic Novel About Female Nudes in the Louvre

Winner of the 2023 'Prix des Rédacteurs de Sceneario.com' for best graphic novel Winner of the 2024 'Prix Artemisia humour', celebrating the best of graphic novels written by women. Nominated for the 2024 Elle Graphic Novel Prize ""A delicious feminist farce"" - Les Inrocks ""Amusing and serious, this graphic novel revisits the history of art in the light of the major issues of gender equality"" - Beau-arts Magazine ""A scathing pamphlet on sexism cast in marble or in the canvases of classical art"" - Le Soir