World famous sculptor Louise Bourgeois has her works displayed at some of the world’s most prestigious locales … such as London’s Tate Modern Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.
Born in Paris on Christmas Day 1911, Bourgeois moved to New York in 1938 with her US-born husband, Robert Goldwater, continuing her art studies, which she had started at the École du Louvre and later the École des Beaux-Arts, at New York’s Art Students League.
Best known for her spider sculptures, which she calls Maman, she says she gets her inspiration from her father, who had an affair with a live-in governess while her mother refused to admit it was going on. Her works playfully reflects her innermost thoughts of anger, being betrayed and feelings of jealousy.
Her first exhibition was in 1947, and although successful (with one piece being bought by the Museum of Modern Art), her skills went pretty much unheralded during the next two decades. It wasn’t until the seventies that the art world woke up to Bourgeois’ talent.
But is was the nineties that saw her at her peak, representing the US at the Venice Biennale in 1993, the International Biennial in Melbourne in 1999, and the Tate Modern the same year. One of her pieces from the Tate now stands in front of Canada’s National Gallery in Ottawa.
Her sculptures reflect a vulnerable and fragile ambience, and some say they are sexually tactile, which she believes is part of that ambience.
