LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Descriptive Title:

Woman Leaning on a Column

Themes:

Faces & Portraits, Objects

Techniques:

Drypoint

Description:

Drypoint, with selective wiping, and red ink additions

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 4 15/16 x 6 7/8" (12.5 x 17.4 cm); sheet: 10 5/8 x 11" (27 x 28 cm)

Signature:

"LB" lower right margin, red ink.

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

6 known variant impressions of version 2, state III

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Proof before the editioning of version 2, state IV.

State Changes and Additions:

Changes from version 1, in drypoint: top part of composition transferred to new plate and increased in scale.
Changes from version 2, state II, in drypoint: necklace and fingernails added; hair and upper arms further delineated.

Curatorial Remarks:

To create the editioned version of this composition, Bourgeois began with "The Obese Woman," which depicts a woman leaning on a column. She developed the image through a series of state changes before abandoning the idea of depicting a full figure. In the second version, "The Smile," only the top part of the composition was transferred to a new plate. Carbon transfers of the preexisting imagery were used to aid in the process of developing the reconfigured composition.

"The Smile" was editioned as the unbound frontispiece for the 2001 book "Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father - Reconstruction of the Father, Schriften und Interviews, 1923-2000," seen below in Related Works in Other Mediums. Edited by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and published by Ammann Verlag, Zurich, the German reissue is an updated version of the 1998 book published by Violette, London. The 2001 book is a hardcover and comes in a slipcase.

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

1103.2008

This Work in Other Collections:

Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, Switzerland

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY