Louise Bourgeois

An exploration of the art and writing of Louise Bourgeois through the lens of her relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis From 1952 to 1985, Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) underwent extensive Freudian analysis that probed her family history, marriage, motherhood, and artistic ambition--and generated inspiration for her artwork. Examining the impact of psychoanalysis on Bourgeois's work, this volume offers insight into her creative process. Philip Larratt-Smith, Bourgeois's literary archivist, provides an overview of the artist's life and work and the ways in which the psychoanalytic process informed her artistic practice. An essay by Juliet Mitchell offers a cutting-edge feminist psychoanalyst's viewpoint on the artist's long and complex relationship with therapy. In addition, a short text written by Bourgeois (first published in 1991) addresses Freud's own relationship to art and artists. Featuring excerpts from Bourgeois's copious diaries, rarely seen notebook pages, and archival family photographs, Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter opens exciting new avenues for understanding an innovative, influential, and groundbreaking artist whose wide-ranging work includes not only renowned large-scale sculptures but also a plethora of paintings and prints.

This book illustrates a collection of Louise Bourgeois' work from 1939-2005.

Louise Bourgeois' work defies classification, oscillating continually between abstract geometry and organic reality. She uses a range of materials from wood and plaster to marble and latex to explore universal themes-the body, childhood, maternity, and sexuality-from a deeply personal perspective, imbuing them with extraordinary emotional intensity. This comprehensive and richly illustrated monograph is chronological in approach, and brings together her works from early sketches and paintings to later sculptures and installations with which she has astonished the art world. Author Marie-Laure Bernadac skillfully weaves her insightful text with Bourgeois' own words from articles, films, and interviews to provide a unique and highly accessible study of this fascinating and complex artist.

The first publication to fully survey Louise Bourgeois's printmaking, a major component of her artistic practice. Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait explores the prints, books and creative process of the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois whose printed oeuvre, while lesser known than other aspects of her work, is vast in scope and comprises some 1,400 printed compositions. Over the course of her career, Bourgeois constantly revisited the themes and motifs of her art - all of which emerged from troubling emotions she struggled with for a lifetime. This investigation reveals the creative process underlying her artistic practice through evolving states for print compositions, as well as through the juxtaposition of works in different mediums and from different periods of her long career. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, the book features over 250 prints organized thematically and placed within the context of the artist's sculpture, drawings and paintings. The book also sheds light on the collaborative relationships between Bourgeois and her printmaking associates who often came to her home studio to work with her there - sometimes on a daily basis - pulling trial proofs from printing presses she kept in her basement. Interviews with Bourgeois's primary assistant, with whom she worked for decades, as well as with a printer and a publisher, each of whom helped foster her creative engagement with the medium, provide insight into her working process.

Her increasing recognition since then culminated with the selection of her work to represent the United States at the 1993 Venice Biennale.

A rare glimpse inside the private world of Louise Bourgeois, one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. "Readers who already love the artist will be thrilled by the richness of this book, and those who didn't know her work before will discover a complex, brilliant, and deeply emotional artist who used her creative gifts to reshape the world around her." – Architectural Digest "Bound in soft sky–blue linen cloth and full of suggestive photography, the pleasure begins when the book is first held, its heft and weight, the mix of textures and fonts suggest something to be savored, then saved." – New York Journal of Books Louise Bourgeois was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and photographer Jean–François Jaussaud met her for the first time in 1994 at her studio in Brooklyn. But it was not before she had interrogated him about every aspect of his life that he earned her trust. A rare photo session was set up in Spring 1995, under one condition: she would destroy the photographs if she didn't like them… Jaussaud agreed to it and passed the test. He was then given carte blanche to photograph her studio and her house in Chelsea, and he kept coming back for another eleven years. Jaussaud's photographs of Louise Bourgeois in her house and studio are a moving testimony showing how completely implicated in her work she was, to the point that her private life and her work were inextricably interwoven. Louise Bourgeois: An Intimate Portrait also contains: •Extracts from Bourgeois' diary • Personal notes • Short texts from Jaussaud, Marie–Laure Bernadac, and Xavier Girard. This is a must–have addition to any serious admirer of Louise Bourgeois as well as a fascinating entry point for those just discovering her groundbreaking explorations of the family, sexuality, bodies, death, and the unconscious.