LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction, Animals & Insects

Techniques:

Etching

Description:

panel (a): Soft ground etching, with red watercolor additions
panel (b): Soft ground etching, with red watercolor additions (see Curatorial Remarks)
panel (c): Soft ground etching, with red watercolor additions
panel (d): Pencil
panel (e): Soft ground etching, with black and red watercolor additions

Support:

panels (a), (b), (c), (d): Smooth, wove handmade paper
panel (e): Fabric (slightly stained along left and right edges)

Dimensions:

plate (a and b) (each): 60 5/16 × 12 3/8" (153.2 × 31.5 cm); plate (c): 58 11/16 × 19 7/16" (149.1 × 49.3 cm); plate (e): 55 11/16 × 35 7/16" (141.4 × 90 cm); sheet (overall): 73 3/8 × 113 3/4" (186.4 × 288.9 cm)

Signature:

panel (e): "LB" lower right comp., stitched in red thread.

Inscription:

panel (d): "The / fear / is / inside you!!!" center sheet, pencil, artist's hand.

Publisher:

Osiris, New York

Printer:

Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH

Edition:

Unique

Impression:

Not numbered

State Changes and Additions:

Matrices:
This 5-panel composition uses 3 plates that were used in other compositions and issued as a separate edition. They are noted below and can be seen in Related Works in the Catalogue.

panels (a) and (b): plate from "Alone and Together"
The plate is in a different orientation from panel to panel.

panel (c): plate from "The Little Leeches"

panel (e): plate from "The Stretch"

Background:

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.

Curatorial Remarks:

The plate dimensions are from the impressions in MoMA's Collection. The sheet dimensions were provided by the Louise Bourgeois Studio.

Between panels (a) and (b), there is a gap filled with additional linework in black pencil to connect the two plates and create the illusion of a single plate.

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY