LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Alternate Title:

Winged Head

Themes:

Abstraction, Faces & Portraits

Techniques:

Etching

Description:

Soft ground etching, with pencil additions

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 6 15/16 x 8 7/8" (17.7 x 22.6 cm); sheet: 8 1/16 × 10 5/16" (20.5 × 26.2 cm)

Signature:

"L. Bourgeois." lower left margin, pencil.

Inscription:

"Best wishes / David Porter" lower center comp., pencil, artist's hand. Verso: "arranger image très formels / faire tête intéressante & sérieuse / Commissioned by D.P. for a greeting card 1948," (upside down) lower center sheet, pencil, artist's hand.

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

The artist

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 soft ground etching: winged head further delineated; ovals added in upper comp.; shading lines added throughout.

Background:

David Porter, who commissioned this greeting card, came to know the artist when he worked at Public Works News in New York. He had a Bourgeois lithograph hanging in his office (according to an undated letter in MoMA Collection records). As a dealer in Washington, D.C., he organized the 1945 exhibition "Personal Statement: Painting Prophecy 1950," which included "Natural History #2," seen in Related Works in Other Mediums below. (To read the artist's statement from the exhibition catalogue, see Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans-Ulrich Obrist's "Destruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews, 1923-1997." London: Violette, 1998, p. 44.) Bourgeois did not know whether, as planned, Porter actually had greeting cards made using her design.

Former Cat. No.:

W & S 6

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

142.1990

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY