Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is the first comprehensive exhibition of paintings produced by the iconic French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) between her arrival in New York in 1938 and her turn to sculpture in the late 1940s. While Bourgeois is best known today as a sculptor, it is in this early body of work—created in the decade spanning World War II—that her artistic voice emerged, establishing a core group of visual motifs that she would continue to explore and develop over the course of her celebrated, decades-long career. Informed by new archival research, the exhibition sheds light on a little-known chapter in the artist’s practice.
Louise Bourgeois: Paintings is organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The presentation in New Orleans is sponsored by the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation, Tim L. Fields, and Harvey and Marie Orth, and Aimee and Michael Siegel.
The Runaway Girl
ca. 1938
Louise Bourgeois
Oil, charcoal, and pencil on canvas
24 x 15 inches; 61 x 38.1 cm
Collection of The Easton Foundation, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Louise Bourgeois in the studio of her apartment at 142 East 18th Street (detail)
ca. 1946
Unknown artist
Gelatin silver print
Collection Louise Bourgeois Archive, The Easton Foundation. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY
Untitled
1946–47
Louise Bourgeois
Oil on canvas
26 x 44 inches; 66 x 111.8 cm
ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland, Lent by the Artist Rooms Foundation 2018. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Femme-Maison
1946–47
Louise Bourgeois
Oil and ink on linen
36 x 14 inches; 92 x 36 cm
Private Collection, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Fallen Woman (Femme Maison)
1946–47
Louise Bourgeois
Oil on linen
18 1/2 x 40 ½ inches; 47 x 103 cm
Private Collection, New York. Photo by Christopher Burke. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
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