LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Body Parts, Music

Techniques:

Etching

Description:

Soft ground etching, with watercolor and pencil additions

Support:

Music paper; staves drawn in pencil

Dimensions:

sheet: 14 5/8 × 35 3/4" (37.1 × 90.8 cm)

Signature:

"LB" lower right comp., pencil.

Publisher:

Osiris, New York

Printer:

Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH

Edition:

11 unique variants of the only state, within 10 installation sets

Impression:

Set 4 (verso inscription not confirmed)

Edition Information:

The series of installation sets, "10 AM Is When You Come to Me" (sets 1-10), is not a traditional edition in that each installation set is unique. Etching compositions, each with hand additions, appear in varying orientations and slightly varying sheet sizes across the installation set series. Also, some sets in the series include more sheets than other sets, as follows:

Sets 1-7: 20 sheets
Set 8: 30 sheets
Sets 9-10: 40 sheets

Each individual composition in "10 AM Is When You Come to Me" is numbered for cataloguing purposes and has its own Evolving Composition Diagram. There are 33 different compositions. Every impression of each composition is illustrated, in order to show the varying orientations and unique hand additions.

All 10 installation sets include compositions nos. 1-19. Composition no. 19 is adhered to the portfolio box for each set, as well as appearing once within the set.

Installation sets 8-10 differ from sets 1-7 not only because they include more sheets, but also because they contain etching compositions that do not appear in installation sets 1-7. Installation sets 9 and 10 contain a number of drawn compositions with no printed elements. A breakdown of the numbered compositions by installation set is as follows:

Installation sets 1-7: etching compositions nos. 1-19
Installation set 8: etching compositions nos. 1-19, 21-23, 25-28
Installation set 9: etching compositions nos. 1-19, 20-25; drawn compositions nos. 29-32; one hand-written text
Installation set 10: etching compositions nos. 1-19, 20-23, 25, 26; drawn composition no. 33

Background:

The title of this series of installation sets refers to the daily arrival of Bourgeois's assistant, Jerry Gorovoy, at the artist's home. The compositions were created from tracings of the artist's and the assistant's hands and arms, which Bourgeois arranged for each composition. Prior to the etched compositions, Bourgeois created a series of 7 drawings, also titled "10 AM Is When You Come to Me" (see Related Works in Other Mediums).

Benjamin Shiff, the director of the Osiris imprint, collaborated with Bourgeois in a highly experimental phase of printmaking that occupied the last years of her life, from 2005 to 2010. He first established a working relationship with the artist in the 1990s, but the late period is particularly noteworthy for the innovative and complex large-scale projects that evolved at that time. Shiff made use of professional workshops for printing, but he oversaw the creation of the printing plates as Bourgeois worked on them in her home studio. He also provided assistance as she added extensive hand additions and texts, and as she combined individual compositions into multi-panel works and illustrated books.

Installation Remarks:

This sheet is one of 20 that constitute a single work of art. All of these sheets are to be exhibited together, as an installation, though there is no required sequence.

Curatorial Remarks:

The type of paper as well as verso inscriptions or numbering could not be fully documented because this impression is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person. The sheet medium and dimensions were provided by the Louise Bourgeois Studio.

This Work in Other Collections:

Tate Modern, London and National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh (set 7 jointly owned; on long-term loan by Artist Rooms Foundation 2013)

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY