LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction

Techniques:

Lithography

Description:

Lithograph

Support:

Smooth, wove Umbria paper

Dimensions:

composition: 11 15/16 x 10 1/16" (30.4 x 25.5 cm); sheet: 14 x 12 1/16" (35.5 x 30.7 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

SOLO Impression, New York

Edition:

8 known impressions of the only state

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Not issued as a published edition.

Matrices:
This variant impression involved 2 lithography matrices.

Matrix 1: blue background.

Matrix 2: black composition.

Background:

In the early stages of their working relationship, printer and publisher Judith Solodkin of SOLO Impression, New York, brought Bourgeois two stones covered in black ink, with the hopes of encouraging her to work in lithography. Bourgeois worked on only one stone for this print.

Artist’s Remarks:

"These shapes 'have managed a little bit of reaching power. Instead of destroying themselves by strangling, or by wanting too much, they have reached over. It is very sweet. It is wishful thinking... it is a morning wish.'" (Quote cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 159.)

About the source drawing, 1968: "This is the toi and the moi. You see, the spirals seem to be isolated. They exist only through the fact that they are reaching." (Quote cited in Bourgeois, Louise and Lawrence Rinder. "Louise Bourgeois Drawings and Observations." Berkeley: University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive University of California, Berkeley; Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1995, p. 130.)

Former Cat. No.:

W & S 87

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

528.1993

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY