LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction, Spiders

Techniques:

Aquatint

Description:

Aquatint, with black ink, red ink, and pencil additions

Support:

Smooth, wove Arches paper, mounted on smooth, wove Dieu Donné paperboard

Dimensions:

plate: 6 13/16 x 4 13/16" (17.3 x 12.3 cm); sheet: 14 3/4 x 11" (37.5 x 27.9 cm)

Signature:

"Louise Bourgeois" lower right margin, pencil.

Inscription:

Verso: "Study 1/3" center sheet, pencil, artist's hand.

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH

Edition:

5 known variant impressions: 3 with hand-drawn spider addition, 2 with aquatint background only

Impression:

"Study 1/3" center verso, pencil, artist's hand.

Edition Information:

Not issued as a published edition.

Very slight variations exist in the delineation of the hand-drawn spider in each of the the three impressions with that addition.

State Changes and Additions:

Additions in pencil: partically erased delineation of a small house at center right.

Background:

The background pattern of this composition is from a plate created in c. 1989 as a technical experiment for Benjamin Shiff, Director of Osiris Editions. Four known impressions were documented in Wye & Smith as B2 with the descriptive title, "Diagonal Drips Across Plate." Two of those impressions are in MoMA's Collection. An additional impression was located with the publisher, making five known impressions in all.

In 1994, the artist added a spider in ink over the compositions of three of the known impressions. Those three impressions were then titled "Spider."

Curatorial Remarks:

This aquatint impression was trimmed to the plate mark and mounted to a board.

Former Cat. No.:

W & S B2

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

704.2006

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY