LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Descriptive Title:

Boy Through a Keyhole

Themes:

Faces & Portraits, Figures, Motherhood & Family

Techniques:

Drypoint, Engraving

Description:

Drypoint and engraving

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 11 x 8 3/4" (28 x 22.2 cm); sheet: 14 7/16 x 10 3/4" (36.6 x 27.3 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

1 known impression of state II

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Not issued as a published edition at any state.

State Changes and Additions:

Changes from state I, in drypoint: figure articulated.
Changes from state I, in engraving: keyhole reinforced.

Background:

In 2003, "Radar," a now defunct magazine, asked Bourgeois to participate in a "Talking Heads" series. The premise was for each participating artist to receive the same photocopy of a head in profile. The artists were then asked to add hand additions in whatever fashion they chose. The black outlined profile head, seen in the Source drawing in the Evolving Composition Diagram below, was provided by "Radar" to Bourgeois. (The profile outline is also seen here as a Study and as a Related Work in Other Mediums.) The Louise Bourgeois Studio has no record that the "Talking Heads" collaboration with Bourgeois ever came to fruition. However, Bourgeois went on to use the profile outline as the basis of the composition seen here, ultimately combined with a keyhole motif.

Artist’s Remarks:

Inscribed on the verso of the source drawing: "false memory syndrom—[sic] / memories of parents as molestors [sic] / Hysteria / skitzophrenia [sic] / paranoia / to punish / Henry / Lowenfeld / Yulla + Jack Lipschitz founda / tion" across sheet, pencil, artist's hand.

Curatorial Remarks:

Henry Lowenfeld was the psychoanalyst Bourgeois worked with intensively in the period of the 1950's into the 1960's, as well as intermittenly until Lowenfeld died in 1985. The inscription that follows refers to the artist Jacques Lipchitz and his organization, the Jacques and Yulla Lipchitz Foundation.

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

1748.2008

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY