Milady Hartmann
Textile sculptor, designer & independent curator
Milady Hartmann is a sculptor, designer and independent curator. Of French and Haitian descent, an American-Canadian creator based in Montreal, she trained at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her work is deeply rooted in her rich cultural heritage. She signs her work as Mylady.Milady.
Textile is the foundation of her practice, and paper its structure. Together they strike a balance between line and curve: soft-textile sculpture that conveys the illusion of having been carved. Her pieces, gramophones, vases, ornate architectural forms, reference the natural world and tell stories of transformation, culture and humanity. Her journey as a mother led her to found Brownstone Playhouse, where sculpted paper art dolls, inspired by the porcelain and bisque dolls of a bygone era, became her signature. Haute couture, painting, faux finishes, theatre and film production design, curation: her work is a symphony of materials and techniques.
Her work has been shown in museums, opera houses, cultural centres and galleries across Canada, the United States and Europe. In 2025 she represented Quebec with the Conseil des métiers d’art du Québec at the Révélations biennale at the Grand Palais in Paris and at the Contemporania biennale in Barcelona. That same year she co-directed Histoires d’Invincibles at Place des Arts in Montreal, as part of Black History Month. She has exhibited at Fiber International in Pittsburgh (2023), at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for Splendore di Venezia (2015) and at the Opéra de Montréal for Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (2014), and her work was featured in the British magazine Selvedge (2024). In 2026 she designed the Legacy Room for Dr. Dorothy Williams.
