LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Descriptive Title:

Red Bell Jar

Themes:

Body Parts, Figures, Objects

Techniques:

Drypoint, Engraving, Other

Description:

Drypoint, engraving, and blue monotype, with blue pencil additions

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 7 15/16 x 5 1/4" (20.2 x 13.4 cm); sheet: 15 3/4 x 11 1/4" (40 x 28.5 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

1 known impression of state XI

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Proof before the editioning of state XIII.

The 4 impressions of varying states labeled "HC" in red ink, in the artist's hand, are not conventional H.C. impressions, which would be of the final state.

State Changes and Additions:

Changes from state X in drypoint: shading on plaftorm floor delineated; knob on bell jar-like form filled in.
Additions in blue pencil: markings at four corners of plate, near knob on bell jar-like form, and around edge of platform base at bottom and right.

Other Remarks:

According to Louise Bourgeois’s assistant, Jerry Gorovoy, the bell jar-like form in “Hair” was not done in conjunction with Bourgeois’s monumental sculptural installation for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, in 2000. In that installation, each of three huge steel towers included, within it, a small sculpture depicting a mother and child inside a bell jar. Bourgeois’s print “Do Not Abandon Me,” with similar imagery and seen here in Related Works in the Catalogue, does have a direct relationship to the Tate installation.

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

835.2008

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY