Designer of the Month: Louise Bourgeois

One of the most important artistic figures of the 20th century, it's no exaggeration to say that the influence of Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) will be felt far beyond the span of her 98-year life. While primarily known as a sculptor, Bourgeois was an artist whose work included everything from painting and printmaking to performance, with a life and career that spanned multiple countries, decades and artistic movements.

Louise Bourgeois behind her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970), 1990. Photograph by Raimon Ramis. Courtesy of the Centre Pompidou, France.

Born in Paris, France in 1911 to a family who owned a gallery that dealt in antique tapestries, Bourgeois took to art early in life, drawing fragments of missing images to help in the tapestry repairs. It was an emotionally conflicted childhood, particularly with regard to her father, however, that she often counts as formative in the creation of the symbolic, psychologically charged work that would define her career.[1] At the age of 20, Bourgeois entered the Sorbonne to study mathematics and geometry, but left to enroll at at a series of art schools before marrying the American art historian Robert Goldwater in 1938, moving to New York, and establishing herself as an artist of incredible renown.[2] An artistic hero to many, this month, I'm excited to explore the remarkable life and career of Louise Bourgeois. I hope you'll join me.


[1] Holland Cotter, "Louise Bourgeois, Influential Sculptor, Dies at 98," The New York Times online, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/arts/design/01bourgeois.html?scp=2&sq=louise+bourgeois&st=nyt (accessed January 4, 2012).

[2] Ibid.