Louise Bourgeois: Drawings and Observations

by Louise Bourgeois, Lawrence Rinder, Josef Helfenstein (Contributor)

Depicts drawings by an artist better known for her sculpture, and features interviews and comments by the artist

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art Design

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and print-maker. She explored a variety of themes over the course of her long career including domesticity and the family, sexuality and the body, as well as death and the unconscious. These themes connect to events from her childhood which she considered to be a therapeutic process. Although Bourgeois exhibited with the Abstract Expressionists and her work has much in common with Surrealism and Feminist art, she was not formally affiliated with a particular artistic movement.

Reviews

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was offered “on the occasion of the exhibition Louise Bourgeois: Drawings," which showed first in Berkeley and then in New York. It features excerpts from interviews with the artist conducted by curator Lawrence Rinder in 1994 and in 1995. The drawings are exceptional and highly personal. They explore and represent the human condition--the anguish and the joy that characterize our relationships (what she calls the toi et moi) without which “life has little value.” One could spend a lot of time getting lost in these drawings--their simplicity belies something far more profound.

[reading is my hustle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked this out right after Louise Bourgeois died this past May. I first became aware of "Spiderwoman" after seeing a postcard of her on a friend's fridge. Most (if not all?) of her work is autobiographical and her inspiration stems from when she learned that her governess was also her father's mistress.

I love her art. AND I love the themes she explored through her art: anxiety, betrayal, loneliness, weaving/spinning, nurturing, protection. Her art is so tender.

Louise Bourgeois- one of the greatest female artists, ever. I even have one of her knots tattooed on my body (RIP lambnose, the knots in life bind us).

[Frances King · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it’s absolutely wonderful to hear Louise talk about her work, with frank humor and lingering nostalgia. It’s nice. I spent so long wrapped up in the words she scribbled across her images, curled in them like I had found my cocoon ! Once I cried in MoMA after confronted by her blaring words of TRUTH. It’s just cool to hear her talk about it !!! Ahh!!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contains some of the most idiosyncratic and interesting essays I’ve ever read

[Dawn Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good insights, a little bit surface on the drawing explanations, for her drawings are secondary to sculpture, even if she is obsessive about documentation. But a nice read - she's quietly suspicious.

[Robert Paul Olsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a neat book written by a female sculptress who likes to draw and write comments about how her life is evolving because she just needs another outlet. I found it very interesting, and really cool that she can make these sculptures with these monstrous tools and also need to make these simple drawings with complex thoughts, I think it's worth checking out.

[Tina]

got this one on the hold shelf and saving up

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A commentary and a guide to my art making, I enjoy the small stories as well.

[Jules]

741.973 bou

[Nele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind blowing!