
Louise Bourgeois
Couples, 2001

Louis Bourgeois (1911-2010) is one of the most important artists of the modern era. She earned her …

Beginning her artistic practice in her native Paris, Louise Bourgeois was originally associated with Surrealism due to her integration of fantastic elements into her prints and sculptures. Upon moving to New York in 1938, Bourgeois focused primarily on sculpture, crafting biomorphic forms that curator Lucy Lippard has described as enacting the physicality of the body as experienced from within. Bourgeois’s suggestive organ-like contours and early use of unconventional materials (like resin, latex, and cloth) allude to a tension between quintessentially male and female forms. This recurrent interrogation of the male/female dialectic aligns Bourgeois with the Feminist movement, but her work has also been examined through the lens of Abstract Expressionism, as she exhibited with artists such as Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.


Louis Bourgeois (1911-2010) is one of the most important artists of the modern era. She earned her place in the canon for her exceptional contribution to Modern sculpture.
She began her artistic career as a painter and printmaker but turned to sculpture in the late 1940’s.
All the while, she constantly made drawings …

Beginning her artistic practice in her native Paris, Louise Bourgeois was originally associated with Surrealism due to her integration of fantastic elements into her prints and sculptures. Upon moving to New York in 1938, Bourgeois focused primarily on sculpture, crafting biomorphic forms that curator Lucy Lippard has described as enacting the physicality of the body as experienced from within. Bourgeois’s suggestive organ-like contours and early use of unconventional materials (like resin, latex, and cloth) allude to a tension between quintessentially male and female forms. This recurrent interrogation of the male/female dialectic aligns Bourgeois with the Feminist movement, but her work has also been examined through the lens of Abstract Expressionism, as she exhibited with artists such as Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.