Sunday Post 11-23-08

Louis Bourgeois

Bourgeois was born in Paris on Christmas Day, 1911. At twelve she was helping her parents draw the missing parts of tapestries that they repaired to make their living. Eventually her father would have an affair with their governess/seamstress. Many of her later works draw from the tension created by her own knowledge of this and her mother's refusal to accept it. She studied painting at the École du Louvre and then the École des Beaux-Arts, and worked as an assistant to Fernand Léger. She married American Robert Goldwater and in 1938 they moved to New York City because she did not feel she would continue to be an artist in Paris. There she studied at the Art Students League of New York. Though one of her pieces in her first show, with one of them being sold to MOMA, she did not truly become a successful artist until after the deaths of both her husband and father in the 70s. She describes her work as being mostly about relationships, but also about desire, anger, betrayal, and jealousy. Her sculptures are constructed from a variety of mediums including steel, fabric, rubber, plastic, plaster, wood, stone, and bronze.

Interview:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art4

Gallery:
http://www.gallery.ca/english/index.html

Website:
Does not have her own website