LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction, Faces & Portraits

Techniques:

Aquatint

Description:

Aquatint, with watercolor, gouache, pencil, and colored pencil additions, and cut-out

Support:

Paper (2 layers)

Dimensions:

sheet: 47 3/4 × 21 3/4" (121.3 × 55.2 cm)

Signature:

"LB" right lower sheet, blue pencil.

Inscription:

"the encounter" lower middle sheet, pencil, artist's hand.

Publisher:

Osiris, New York

Printer:

Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH

Edition:

Unique

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

This unique variant is one of two that combine plates for two Untitled, 2007, compositions, seen in Related Works in the Catalogue. Here, the plate for one of the Untitled compositions is printed on the bottom layer of paper; the plate for the other Untitled composition is partially printed on the top layer of paper, with a cut-out revealing the print below. The second unique variant that combines these plates is seen in the Evolving Composition Diagram.

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 color of the hand additions, plate size, and paper type could not be documented because this work is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person.

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY