LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Body Parts, Figures, Motherhood & Family

Techniques:

Engraving

Description:

Engraving, with red and pink gouache, blue carbon, and red ink additions

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 9 7/8 × 7 15/16" (25.1 × 20.2 cm); sheet: 14 15/16 × 9 7/16" (38 × 23.9 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

4 known variant impressions of state I

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Not issued as a published edition at any state.

Curatorial Remarks:

Toward the end of her life, Bourgeois made a large body of red gouache drawings related to the theme of Motherhood & Family. Bourgeois usually made several iterations of each scene, exploring pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, among other subjects related to new life. Some drawings were used as source works for print compositions. As the print composition evolved, Bourgeois continued to explore the same subject through drawing. See Related Works in Other Mediums below for examples.

After examining this print with the MoMA Conservation Department, it has been determined that the blue hand additions, which resemble colored pencil, are most likely carbon transfer. According to Felix Harlan, of Harlan & Weaver, New York, the artist sometimes made tracings of preexisting imagery as aids when developing compositions.

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

1561.2012

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY