LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction, Spirals

Techniques:

Drypoint

Description:

Drypoint

Support:

Smooth, wove paper

Dimensions:

plate: 4 15/16 x 6 7/8" (12.6 x 17.4 cm); sheet: 19 1/2 x 14" (49 x 35.6 cm)

Signature:

Not signed

Publisher:

unpublished

Printer:

Harlan & Weaver, New York

Edition:

2 known impressions of the only state, outside the edition

Impression:

Not numbered

Edition Information:

Proof before the editioning of the only state.

Background:

In the late 1980s, when publisher Peter Blum began the portfolio project "Anatomy" with Bourgeois, he sought the assistance of printer Judith Solodkin, of SOLO Impression, a longtime friend of the artist. Solodkin suggested Harlan & Weaver as intaglio printers and she served as supervisor for this project and a number of individual prints at that time, including "Ambition," "Meteorology," "Shooting Stars," "Tops," and Untitled, all seen below in Related Works in the Catalogue.

Bourgeois signed "To Hide" in 1989 but put it aside, as she did not want it issued at the same time as "Anatomy." In late 1993, she decided to proceed with publication. At that time, she made hand additions to some impressions given as gifts. Impressions 22/44 and 23/44 are known to have hand additions.

Bourgeois would sometimes revisit preexisting work and make changes that ranged from subtle to drastic. Such was the case with the 1970 drawing "In and Out," which Bourgeois changed slightly, but not before using it as the source drawing for "To Hide." The image of "In and Out" seen below in the Evolving Composition Diagram represents the work as it exists now. To see an image of the work as it once looked, see p. 177 of the 1988 catalogue for the exhibition "Louise Bourgeois Drawings" at Robert Miller Gallery, New York, and Daniel Lelong, Paris. It can also be viewed on p. 132 of the 1990 catalogue for the exhibition "Louise Bourgeois" at Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona.

Artist’s Remarks:

"'You can fool with your spirals... you can have fun with them. The spiral becomes your friend.' Bourgeois was reminded here of her 1940s painting Child Asleep in a Skein of Wool. 'You can even hide something inside.'" (Quote cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 162.)

The Louise Bourgeois Studio has no record of the painting mentioned above by the artist.

Curatorial Remarks:

The stray scratches seen throughout this composition do not appear as prominently on the impressions in the edition, most likely as a result of burnishing before the steel facing process.

Former Cat. No.:

W & S 91

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

541.1993

This Work in Other Collections:

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY