From 1950 onwards, Antoine Bourdelle's widow Cléopâtre, and later their daughter Rhodia and her husband Michel Dufet, organised exhibitions at the museum, alternating between presentations related to the work of Bourdelle or his contemporaries and exhibitions of artists who had won the Prix Bourdelle ('Bourdelle Prize').
Some of the museum's key exhibitions: - 5th Salon de la Jeune Sculpture in 1953 - André Suarès in 1968 - Polychromies à travers les âges et les civilisations ('Polychromy through Ages and Civilisations') in 1971 - La bande à Schnegg ('Schnegg's gang') in 1974 - Vitullo sculpteur Argentin ('Vitullo Argentinian sculptor') in 1981 - Prinet in 1986 - Héraklès Archer: Naissance d'une œuvre ('Herakles Archer: Birth of a work of art') in 1993 - Autour de Bourdelle: Paris et les artistes polonais 1900-1918 ('Around Bourdelle: Paris and Polish artists 1900-1918') in 1996
Prix Bourdelle Organised every 2 years between 1959 and 2001 by the Association des Amis de Bourdelle, the prize was awarded to ‘an artist whose fame was not matched by his talent’, with a prize of 200,000 francs. The jury included some of the biggest names in international sculpture. Alberto Giacometti, Karl Hartung, Henry Moore, Pevsner and Zadkine were on the jury for the first Prix Bourdelle, chaired by Cléopâtre Bourdelle. Financed by the Fine Arts Department of the City of Paris, an exhibition of the prize-winner's works was organised at the Musée Bourdelle.
