Cat. No. 530
The Red Shoes
- State/Variant:
- Only state
- Date:
- 2005
- Themes:
- Objects
- Techniques:
- Etching
- Description:
- Soft ground etching, with red and white gouache, red ink, red pencil, and pencil additions
- Support:
- Smooth, wove Dieu Donné paper
- Dimensions:
- plate: 10 7/8 x 15 1/8" (27.6 x 38.4 cm); sheet: 17 11/16 x 22 1/4" (45 x 56.5 cm)
- Signature:
- "Louise Bourgeois" lower right margin, pencil.
- Inscription:
- "The Red Shoes" lower left margin, pencil, artist's hand.
- Publisher:
- Osiris, New York
- Printer:
- Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH
- Edition:
- 9
- Impression:
- Verso: "study 8/9" lower middle sheet, pencil, unknown hand.
- Edition Information:
- The hand additions on this composition vary across the edition. For comparison, see other impressions in the Evolving Composition Diagram below.
In this edition, Bourgeois and the publisher designated each impression as a "study." However, throughout the catalogue, the term "study" describes photocopies and tracings that were used in the process of developing a composition. - Background:
- According to Bourgeois's assistant, Jerry Gorovoy, this composition was inspired by Bourgeois's relationship to María Fluxá, a Spanish gallery owner and collector with whom she collaborated on the 1999 illustrated book, "Metamorfosis." The subject matter of that book involves Fluxá's background, including the fact that her father ran an important shoe manufacturing business owned by the family. The book's illustrations include images of shoes and Fluxá also sent Bourgeois a pair of wooden shoe forms. The artist used those wooden forms to inform this composition. It is possible she even traced them, as she sometimes did with various items from around her house.
- MoMA Credit Line:
- Gift of the artist
- MoMA Accession Number:
- 721.2006
© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY