About Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was a French-American artist whose extensive career spanned over seven decades, leaving an indelible mark on modern and contemporary art. Best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation artwork, Bourgeois also excelled in painting, drawing, and print, exploring themes of family, sexuality, death, and the subconscious. Her art is profoundly autobiographical, delving into her own experiences to confront fear, anxiety, and the complexities of the human condition.

Louise Bourgeois’ sculptures, particularly her iconic Maman series—a collection of towering spider structures—symbolize motherhood’s strength and complexity. These and other artworks, like her Cells installations, create immersive environments that invite introspection on isolation, vulnerability, and memory. Her use of diverse materials, from bronze and marble to latex and fabric, reflects the multifaceted nature of her themes, embodying softness and hardness, fragility and resilience.

In her printmaking and painting, Louise Bourgeois maintained a similarly introspective and complex approach. Her fine art prints often feature organic, repeating forms and are deeply symbolic, exploring motifs of the body, nature, and familial relationships. Her paintings, though less prevalent, carry a raw, emotional charge, utilizing abstract and figurative elements to express internal landscapes. Bourgeois’ influence extends beyond her pioneering contributions to sculpture and installation art.

She was a central figure in discussions on feminism in art, using her artwork to challenge traditional representations of gender and identity. Despite achieving recognition later in life, her legacy is characterized by her relentless innovation, psychological depth, and the universal resonance of her themes. Louise Bourgeois’ art transcends easy categorization, standing as a testament to her explorations of the pain and beauty of human life.

Auction record: $32.8m, Sotheby’s, 2023

Notable exhibitions

Louise Bourgeois gained wider recognition with her inclusion in documenta 9 (1992) and a groundbreaking retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1982), which was the museum’s first for a woman artist.

Her prominence grew with major exhibitions such as the U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1993) and a large-scale retrospective at the Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou (2007–2008).

In her later years, exhibitions like Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works (2010) and her inclusion in Viva Arte Viva at the Venice Biennale (2017) reinforced her enduring influence on contemporary art.