LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Spirals

Techniques:

Drypoint

Description:

Drypoint

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 4 15/16 x 6 7/8" (12.6 x 17.5 cm); sheet: 19 1/2 × 14 1/16" (49.5 × 35.7 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

4 known impressions of the only state

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Not issued as a published edition.

Background:

In the late 1980s, when publisher Peter Blum began the portfolio project "Anatomy" with Bourgeois, he sought the assistance of printer Judith Solodkin, of SOLO Impression, a longtime friend of the artist. Solodkin suggested Harlan & Weaver as intaglio printers and she served as supervisor for this project and a number of individual prints at that time, including "Meteorology," "Shooting Stars," "Tops," Untitled, and "To Hide," all seen below in Related Works in the Catalogue.

Artist’s Remarks:

"Spirals are a plea. Today I am No. 1 personality... tomorrow, I am No. 2. They are a plea to be accepted with many different moods... a plea for love. But if you don't integrate these attitudes, you are in danger of fragmenting and dying... if you repress them, you kill part of yourself. There can not be jealousy between your attitudes... there can be no competition. But don't worry... all these attitudes can relate to each other... they will organize and form a pattern, a little society. If you let this happen and everyone has a home and a use... it makes a difference. If you treat your unconscious like a friend, it will work for you... it will become a friend. If you treat it like a dog... it will become like a dog."

"The spirals are a form of survival. You have to build up a miserable little strategy to defeat despair. It is a study of the self. These emotions are in all of us. How are you going to make it today?... What saves you is the knowledge that people love you. It is an appeal to reason all the time... the strategy you evolve to be tolerated, accepted, loved." (Quotes cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 163)

Former Cat. No.:

W & S 92

MoMA Accession Number:

539.1993

This Work in Other Collections:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2 impressions)

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY