Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was a French-American artist whose profoundly personal and psychologically-charged work made her one of the most original and influential figures in twentieth-century art. Best known for her monumental spider sculptures - most famously Maman (1999) - and emotionally resonant installations, Bourgeois also maintained a prolific practice in painting, drawing, and printmaking throughout her long career.
Her work defied easy categorisation, spanning movements from Surrealism and Abstraction to feminism and conceptual art, yet remaining deeply individual and introspective. At the heart of Bourgeois's multidisciplinary practice was a fearless exploration of memory, trauma, identity, and the unconscious. Recurring themes such as sexuality and the body, domesticity and motherhood, as well as isolation, jealousy, and repressed emotion, were drawn from her own life experiences and psychological landscape. Her art became a form of autobiography - one that was obsessive, experimental, and constantly evolving.
Bourgeois's approach to materials was as innovative as her subject matter. She worked with a vast range of media, from wood, fabric, and bronze to latex and found objects, each chosen for its ability to evoke emotional and symbolic meaning. Whether constructing towering spiders, fragile textile figures, or evocative cell-like enclosures, she consistently used form and texture to convey complex human states.
Despite working largely outside the spotlight for much of her early career, Bourgeois was catapulted into global recognition in 1982 with a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York - the institution’s first solo exhibition of a female artist. This milestone, achieved at the age of 70, marked the beginning of a late-career renaissance that would solidify her legacy. Her work has since been exhibited in major institutions worldwide, including a landmark retrospective at Tate Modern in 2007.
Louise Bourgeois remained active until the final years of her life, continuing to explore, reinvent, and confront her inner world through art. Her fearless commitment to emotional honesty and her groundbreaking use of form and material have left an enduring impact on contemporary art, inspiring generations of artists to engage with the deeply personal as a powerful mode of expression.
