Louise Bourgeois

 

 Spider Woman...that’s what Louise Bourgeois is known as.  She is famous for the huge spider sculptures she has made and exhibits in the major galleries of the world.  

Louise Bourgeois was born in 1911 and died in 2010 at age 98.  Her childhood experiences forever influenced her life and work.  She was born in France and her family had a business repairing Aubusson rugs. Louise adored her mother but was very unhappy and disappointed by her father.  He was a philanderer and brought a woman into the house who he was having an affair with, to work as Louise’s governess.  She lived there for 10 years and her mother refused to acknowledge what was going on.  Her father would leave the home for weeks at a time, not letting them know he was leaving, to collect the rugs that they would then repair and sell to wealthy Parisians.

Louise first studied mathematics and philosophy at the Sorbonne.  Her mother died when Louise was a young woman and after this she began studying art,  She opened a gallery next to the family rug workshop and the art historian Robert Goldwater came in wanting to buy a Picasso print.  They eventually married and moved to the US.  Louise started with painting and printmaking but moved to sculpture in the 1940s.

All of Louise Bourgeois’ work is autobiographical addressing  betrayal, anxiety and lonliness. She especially focuses on relationships which were often portrayed with erotic imagery.

The spider sculptures are about her mother.  Louise said that spiders are clever, helpful and protective like my mother. Like a spider, her mother was a weaver ( she was in charge of the tapestry restoration workshop). 
Here is a short video of Louise Bourgeois talking about one of her spider sculptures.


http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/363


You can also read an article here where Louise Bourgeois reflects about her life, past and present-
http://www.caroldiehl.com/WRITINGS/Writing_features/17.htm

Google search images to see more of this fascinating artist's sculptures.  She has done much more than I am showing you here.

sculpture made out of the artist's own clothing