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"4/9" lower left colophon, pencil, artist's hand. "4/9" left lower sheet verso (each sheet), pencil, unknown hand.
Housing:
Publisher's clamshell box: gray fabric with embossed title.
Background:
This portfolio project derives from the 2003 mixed media sketchbook, also titled “Fugue,” that Bourgeois made using a music paper notebook. Of the 19 prints in the portfolio, 18 relate directly to pages in the sketchbook, which has 44 drawings in all. (See Related Works in Other Mediums below.) One of the prints, no. 6, is independent of the sketchbook.
The sheets in the portfolio were printed in lithography to resemble music paper, a drawing surface that can be found in Bourgeois’s work as far back as the early 1940s. She returned to music paper in 1994–95, at the time of her "Insomnia Drawings" series, when she listened to music during the night as she drew. She used it frequently in the years that followed.
Installation Remarks:
This portfolio with 19 compositions constitutes a single work of art. All of these compositions are to be exhibited together and in the indicated sequence.
Bibliography:
"Louise Bourgeois: Recent Projects." Milwaukee, WI: Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, 2007.
Catalogue accompanying the exhibition "Louise Bourgeois: Recent Projects" held at the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, from July 26–September 30, 2007.
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