Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait
Description
This first thorough survey of Bourgeois' prints and books orients these works within her broader practice
Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait explores the prints and books of the celebrated sculptor. This little-known body of work is vast in scope--numbering some 1,200 individual compositions--and highly significant within her larger practice. These works encompass the same themes and motifs that occupied Bourgeois throughout her career, and they are explored here within the context of related sculptures, drawings and early paintings. This investigation sheds light on Bourgeois' creative process overall, most vividly through the evolving print states and variants that led to her final compositions; seeing these sequences unfold is akin to looking over the artist's shoulder as she worked.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this catalog presents more than 270 prints and books, organized thematically, and includes an essay that traces Bourgeois' involvement with these mediums within the broader developments of her life and career. It also emphasizes the collaborative relationships that were so fundamental to these endeavors. Included are interviews with Bourgeois' longtime assistant, a printer she worked with side-by-side at her home/studio on 20th Street in New York and the publisher who, in the last decade of her life, encouraged her to experiment with innovative prints that broke the traditional boundaries of the medium. The volume is rounded out with a chronology and bibliography that focus on prints and illustrated books while also providing general background on Bourgeois' life and art.
Born in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois was raised by parents who ran a tapestry restoration business. She met Robert Goldwater, an American art historian, in Paris and they married and moved to New York in 1938. Early on, Bourgeois focused on painting and printmaking, turning to sculpture only in the later 1940s. In 1982, at 70 years old, Bourgeois finally took center stage with a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art. She died in New York in 2010, at the age of 98.
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Reviews
What Louise Bourgeois's drawings reveal about her creative process.--Zachary Small "Artsy "
The Print Legacy of Louise Bourgeois Unfolds at MoMA...A new exhibition gathers some 300 works, including 265 prints, to show the increasingly central role printmaking played in Bourgeois's practice through the decades.--Benjamin Sutton "Hyperallergic "
Louise Bourgeois: imagination unfolds in all dimensions...follows Bourgeois in light circling rhythms as she revisits previous subjects, expanding upon them or transferring them into more substantial media.--Roberta Smith "The New York Times "
Spiders, bodies, and the New York sky: the big and small genius of Louise Bourgeois...In 'Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait' at New York's Museum of Modern Art, a survey of the sculptor's works reveals the roots of her practice and her inner pain and joy.--Tim Teeman "The Daily Beast "
At MoMA, a portrait of Louise Bourgeois as a young and old woman.--David Alm "Forbes "
Revisiting Louise Bourgeois at MoMA...For seven decades, French sculptor Louise Bourgeois created art that often explored the female form, from sexuality to motherhood.--Rosanne Els "New York Magazine, The Cut "
The striking feminist art of Louise Bourgeois - in pictures.--Jonathan Jones "The Guardian "
Louise Bourgeois in a light we've never seen her before.--Angie Kordic "Widewalls "
It places these mediums within the context of the artist's overall practice and sheds new light on her creative process.--Arts Summary
...a rare archive of these works, which is highlighted at the exhibition along with special paintings on loan.--Blouin Art Info
...opens a little-known dimension of the artist's practice: prints and books, shedding light on Bourgeois's creative process.--The Maker Magazine
...explores the quirky sculptur's lesser-known printed oeuvre.--Manhattan Modern Luxury
