LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Alternate Title:

Three Figures; New York USA

Themes:

Architecture

Techniques:

Aquatint, Drypoint, Engraving, Photogravure

Description:

Engraving, drypoint, and aquatint over photogravure

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 7 1/8 × 5 11/16" (18.1 × 14.5 cm); sheet: 11 15/16 × 8 1/2" (30.3 × 21.6 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

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

Edition:

4 known impressions of version 5, state VI

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Proof before the editioning of version 5, state VII in the second edition.

State Changes and Additions:

Changes from version 4: composition transferred to new plate in photogravure (see Curatorial Remarks).
Changes from version 5, state V, in aquatint: light tone added below horizon line.

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 in the 1980s 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:

These three seem "formidable," Bourgeois contended. But the structure in the middle is a "lighthouse," and "it is supposed to be helpful and useful. These are creatures of dignity, not of hostility. They are desperate to do the right thing. The lighthouse is there to throw light... to give guidance. But it is a difficult world.... The left is moi; the other two are always moving and manipulating. Even the lighthouse moves closer, inviting jealousy. There are differences within the relationships." (Quotes cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 80.)

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).

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

1304.2012

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY