LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Alternate Title:

Ambition with Shadows

Themes:

Architecture

Techniques:

Etching

Description:

Etching, with retroussage, and red watercolor additions

Support:

Paper, mounted on board

Dimensions:

plate (trimmed; approx.): 8 15/16 × 6 11/16" (22.7 × 17 cm); mount: 23 3/8 × 13 1/2" (59.4 × 34.3 cm)

Signature:

"Louise Bourgeois" right lower margin, pencil.

Publisher:

Osiris, New York

Printer:

Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH

Edition:

10; plus an illustrated book edition of 12

Impression:

"9/10" lower center sheet verso, pencil, artist's hand.

Edition Information:

In the edition of 10 published impressions with hand additions, each is designated by the artist as a “study”. (Usually in this catalogue, the term “study” describes photocopies and tracings that were used in the process of developing a composition.)

A separate edition of this composition was published as part of the illustrated book "One's Sleep". The illustrated book includes 18 plates with hand additions. (See Evolving Composition Diagram.)

There are 4 known variant impressions outside the editions: two from 1989; one from 1989-1993 with hand additions; and one from 2003 numbered “1/1” that does not include hand additions.

Background:

This composition was initially developed in 1989 in conjunction with Benjamin Shiff, director of Osiris, as a preliminary trial for the book project "the puritan" (see below in Related Works in the Catalogue) although it did not ultimately appear in that book. Bourgeois and Shiff returned to the composition in 2003, creating additional impressions with hand additions to edition and to include in the book "One's Sleep".

Artist’s Remarks:

"I tried to give validity to that transparent building... I tried to make it more real by putting it in a setting. There is a moon... there are shadows... it has reality... it is not a dream." Then, as if addressing the building on the left, she said, "You found a friend. You think you're ambitious... look at the other building!" (Quotes cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 157.)

Curatorial Remarks:

The sheet for this composition has been trimmed down to the plate mark and mounted on a board.

The slightly heavier, blurred effect of the shadow lines in the lower composition is achieved by retroussage printing, where the inked lines of a plate are wiped to draw up more ink to the edges.

The type of paper could not be documented because this impression is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person.

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY