LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Alternate Title:

Leprosarium, Louisiana

Author:

Text by the artist; Introduction by Marius Bewley; Foreword by Deborah Wye

Themes:

Architecture

Techniques:

Aquatint, Engraving, Photogravure

Description:

Engraving and aquatint over photogravure

Support:

Rough, wove Rives BFK paper

Dimensions:

plate: 7 3/16 x 5 1/8" (18.3 x 13 cm); page: 10 1/16 x 6 11/16" (25.5 x 17 cm)

Signature:

"LB" lower right margin, pencil.
"Louise Bourgeois" lower center colophon, pencil.

Inscription:

"Plate 6" lower left margin, pencil, artist's hand

Publisher:

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York for engraving and aquatint,
Renaissance Press, Ashuelot, NH for photogravure (see Curatorial Remarks)

Edition:

30; plus 12 A.P., 2 H.C., 1 B.A.T., 1 P.P., 1 T.P.

Impression:

"1/30" lower center colophon, pencil, unknown hand.

Edition Information:

PLATES:
The plates in the second edition were based on plates of a first edition example in the collection of the New York Public Library (cat. no. 1228, Example 12). The NYPL plates were photographed and then photogravure plates were made from the photographs by Renaissance Press, Ashuelot, NH.

The NYPL example is considered “assembled” because it was put together by the artist in the 1980s with texts and plates from the 1940s that remained in her possession. There are several differences between the NYPL’s “assembled” first edition and the “vintage” first edition example in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, which was acquired in 1947, the date of publication (see cat. no. 1228, Example 1). Those differences are reflected in the new plates for the 2005 second edition. They are as follows:

NYPL Plates 3, 7, and 9 are earlier states of the compositions used in MoMA’s “vintage” Example 1.
NYPL’s example includes a tenth plate, the “Alternative Plate,” which is not included in MoMA Example 1.

The second edition includes eleven plates: the nine original plates, the “Alternative Plate,” and a new plate entitled “Spider.”

SIGNATURES AND PLATE NUMBERS:
Bourgeois signed the plates and added the plate number inscriptions at different times. In MoMA’s example of the book, her handwriting size varies for these elements and may vary throughout the edition. For the plate numbers in MoMA’s example, she uses an upper case “P” on all plates except Plates 1 and 9, where she uses the lower case. Such variations may exist throughout the edition. The “LB” signatures were completed in May-June 2002. The plate numbers were added a year later, in June-July 2003. The colophons were signed in March 2005.

TEXT PAGES:
The 30 books in the second edition of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence” are made up of text pages from the first edition of 1947 that remained in Bourgeois’s possession. The books also include text pages made specifically for the second edition: title page, copyright page, contents page, foreword, “Spider” title page, and colophon. (See Pagination.)

Supplementing the regular edition of 30 books are A.P., H.C., B.A.T., P.P., and T.P. examples. (See Edition.) The 1947 text pages in these examples show some distinctions. Descriptions, compiled by the Harlan & Weaver workshop, are as follows:

1/30-29/30: 1947 text pages do not include a signature on the colophon.

30/30: 1947 text pages do not include a signature on the colophon; the title page has erased pencil writing with circle drawn around it.

A.P. 1/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon with the signatures of Bourgeois, Marius Bewley (author of 1947 introduction), and Anaïs Nin (author, and owner of Gemor Press, where the 1947 text pages were printed). In addition, there is a pencil drawing by Bourgeois of a press (a book press?) on the verso of the back page of the text. (There are no other known examples of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence,” in the first or second editions with the signature of Anaïs Nin.)

A.P. 2/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois. Original 1947 text has “Missing plates” inscribed in pencil on cover of text. A slip of paper with “incomplete” [sic] written on it is inserted in the book.

A.P. 3/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois and numbered “22.” The title page has the following text written in pencil: “Missing text by Bewley / Bits and pieces.”

A.P. 4/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois and numbered “23.” This colophon seems to have once been part of first edition, Example 19 (Sotheby’s, November 9, 1984 Sale), which was purchased by the artist and dismantled. That Example was numbered “23.”

A.P. 5/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

A.P. 6/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois. The text also has a dedication: “with love Louise, June 1978” and (in different [?] writing): “theme of alienation, cruelty.”

A.P. 7/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

A.P. 8/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois. Text back cover has “10 plates, from 35 to 44” written on it.

A.P. 9/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois and Marius Bewley.

A.P. 10/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

A.P. 11/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

A.P. 12/12: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

B.A.T.: 1947 text pages are incomplete; the colophon is unsigned. The missing text pages (NINE ENGRAVINGS / Plate 1 / Plate 6) were reproduced in letterpress by Peter Kruty Editions, Brooklyn.

P.P.: 1947 text pages include a colophon signed by Bourgeois.

H.C.: 1947 text pages include a signed colophon by Bourgeois. This example does not include the 2005 text pages. When the prints from this set were framed, extra original text pages were used to complete the parables. There is no “H.C.” designation on this example; plates are initialed and numbered as in the regular edition.

H.C.: Full set of 2005 plates with no text pages from 1947 or from 2005. Each plate includes an “LB” chopmark in the lower right-hand corner. Plates are designated “H.C.” and not with plate numbers as in the regular edition.

T.P.: Full set of 2005 plates with no text pages from 1947 or from 2005. There is no “T.P.” designation on this example; plates are initialed and numbered as in the regular edition.

State Changes and Additions:

Changes from version 4: composition transferred to new plate in photogravure (see Curatorial Remarks).
Changes from version 5, state II, in aquatint: tone added to foreground.

Pagination:

6 unnumbered pp (including title, copyright, contents and foreword from 2005); 12 unnumbered pp (including title, dedication, and introduction from 1947); 24 unnumbered pp (including “Nine Engravings” title page, text pages, colophon, and back cover from 1947), with 10 plates interspersed; 4 pp (including “Spider 2001-02” title page from 2005), with 1 plate interspersed; 2 unnumbered pp (including 2005 colophon).

Printer of Text:

Gemor Press, New York for 1947 texts,
The Grenfell Press, New York for 2005 texts

Housing:

Unbound. Beige linen cover (overall: 10 ½ x 7 9/16 x 5/8” [26.7 x 19.2 x 1.6 cm]), with brown textured paper lining and flaps to hold book in place. On the cover: off-white label, 2 ¾ x 2 5/8” (6.9 x 1.6 cm), printed in black: “LOUISE / BOURGEOIS.” On the spine: off-white label, ½ x 2 5/8” (1.3 x 6.7 cm), printed in black: “BOURGEOIS.”

Claudia Cohen Bookbinder, Seattle, Washington, produced the cover, modeled after the 1947 edition.

Pink paper wrap-around band, 4” (10.2 cm) high, intended to encircle the cover, printed in black: “HE DISAPPEARED / INTO COMPLETE / SILENCE / 1947-2005.”

Benefit Work:

For the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Background:

Bourgeois issued the first edition of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence” in 1947. (See cat. no. 1228.) At that time, while actively working in printmaking at the Atelier 17 workshop, she decided to create an illustrated book edition with hopes of making her work more widely known. As it turned out, the book was not a success and Bourgeois never completed the announced edition of 54 examples. It frustrated her that she had never finished the project and, much later, in the early 1980s, she began efforts to reissue the book.

Bourgeois could not locate the printing plates for the nine illustrations, so she set about producing new ones. She worked first, in 1984, with printer Deli Sacilotto, of Iris Editions, New York, to create photogravures using 1947 impressions of Plates 1, 3, and the “Alternative Plate.” Then, in 1990, she created engraved versions of Plates 2 and 6 with the assistance of Christian Guérin of Gravure, New York. First, though, in order to determine whether Guérin’s engraving was suitable, she asked him to engrave two similar compositions. (See “Atlantic Avenue: Transparent Houses” [cat. nos. 1054.1, .2, .3].)

In 1993, Bourgeois finally turned the project over to printer Felix Harlan of Harlan & Weaver, New York, with whom she had begun to work on a regular basis. Harlan would ultimately serve as both printer and coordinator of the second edition. He started out by making reprints of some of the 1983 photogravures created with Sacilotto, and the 1990 engravings created with Guérin. In addition, since by then Bourgeois had located three of the original printing plates from the 1940s (two versions of Plate 3 and one version of Plate 4), Harlan made reprints from those, but they were too distressed for use in a future edition. He also attempted to remake Plates 5, 8, and 9 in drypoint and/or etching. Finally, Bourgeois decided to work with photogravure as the starting-off point for all the compositions in the book, in order to keep the plates as close as possible to those of the 1947 edition. In 1995, new photogravure plates were made by Renaissance Press from photographs of the first edition in the New York Public Library (cat. no. 1228, Example 12). Working with Harlan, Bourgeois ultimately re-worked these photogravure plates with engraving, also adding aquatint, drypoint, scorper and watercolor additions in some instances.

The 1947 first edition of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence” includes “vintage” examples issued in 1947 or thereabouts, as well as “assembled” examples that Bourgeois compiled later from prints and texts that remained in her possession. Some of the “assembled” examples, including the one in the New York Public Library, have ten plates rather than the standard nine plates. The tenth plate is a composition called “Alternative Plate” for cataloguing purposes. The second edition includes this “Alternative Plate,” as well as an entirely new eleventh plate titled, “Spider.”

Bourgeois worked intermittently on this project for over a decade, with the second edition appearing in 2005 as a benefit publication for the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In addition to eleven plates, the book includes text pages from 1947 that had remained with Bourgeois, as well as a new table of contents, foreword, and colophon. The housing was constructed to match that of the 1947 first edition.

Artist’s Remarks:

"The ambitious architecture of the earlier plates starts to give way to a more human scale. Eventually, they will move into a room. At the right in later versions, here, is a kind of lighthouse, again, but it is raised from the ground. (Suspicion grows when you do not trust the ground anymore. It is the beginning of disintegration.) The middle structure tries to find equilibrium through its base, to keep balance... but this will break down."
In one of the variant prints with hand additions, Bourgeois characterizes the changes as "Someone trying to reveal himself. The outside is not acting as a covering. Energy is starting to come out. Heat, energy, faith... it is a source of survival. It is indispensable... but it is also a source of danger." (Quotes cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 86.)

Curatorial Remarks:

According to printer Paul Taylor, of Renaissance Press, the print workshop re-located from Hinsdale to Ashuelot, New Hampshire. On the colophon, the place is given as Hinsdale.

The Renaissance Press made photogravures from photographs of all ten plates in the New York Public Library’s example of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence” (cat. no. 1228, Example 12) to serve as the starting-off point for the second edition (see Background).

For this impression, the plate was inked à la poupée, a method in which a doll-shaped piece of fabric is used to apply multiple ink colors to the plate.

Author Information:

Bourgeois is the author of the nine parables in "He Disappeared into Complete Silence." Marius Bewley is the author of the Introduction in the 1947 edition. Deborah Wye is the author of the Forward in the 2005 edition.

Marius Bewley (American, 1918-1973), author of the 1947 Introduction, was a poet and literary scholar, who also served for a year (1944-45) as Peggy Guggenheim’s assistant at her New York gallery, Art of This Century. (A slightly altered version of his text appears in “Tiger’s Eye” I, no. 7 [March 15, 1949], 89-92.)

Deborah Wye, author of the 2005 Foreword, was MoMA’s Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at the date of publication. She is a scholar of Bourgeois’s work and is the Editor of this online catalogue raisonné.

Bibliography:

Most books and catalogues surveying Bourgeois’s work include a discussion of the 1947 first edition of “He Disappeared into Complete Silence,” as well as illustrations of some, if not all, plates and parables. To date (2018), plates from the 2005 second edition have only occasionally been included in publications, and without lengthy text discussions.

Other references of note for the first edition:
Bourgeois, Louise. “He Disappeared into Complete Silence.” Paris: Éditions Dilecta, 2008. Trade edition. Edition: 2000. (This edition was made from Example 7 of the first edition [Collection Louise Bourgeois Trust], but it includes French translations.)

Cluitmans, Laurie, and Arnisa Zeqo, eds. “He Disappeared into Complete Silence: Rereading a Single Artwork by Louise Bourgeois.” With texts by Mieke Bal, Maria Barnas, Lytle Shaw, Robert Storr, Steven ten Thije, and Arnisa Zeqo. Haarlem, Netherlands: De Hallen Haarlem, 2011.

Nixon, Mignon. “He Disappeared into Complete Silence: Phantastic Reality.” In “Louise Bourgeois and a Story of Modern Art.” Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 2005, pp. 83-117.

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

1277.2008.6

This Work in Other Collections:

Glenstone Museum, Potomac, MD
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, Reina Sofía, Madrid (long-term loan from The Easton Foundation)
Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
Jordon Schnitzer Family Foundation, Portland, OR
Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, Oslo
Tate Modern, London
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY