- published: 17 Feb 2013
- views: 73878
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (French pronunciation: [lwiz buʁʒwa]; 25 December 1911 – 31 May 2010), was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman. In 2011 one of her Spider works sold for $10.7 million, a new record price for the artist at auction, and the highest price paid for a work by a woman artist.
She is recognized today as the founder of confessional art.
In the late 1940s, after moving to New York City with her American husband, Robert Goldwater, she turned to sculpture. Though her works are abstract, they are suggestive of the human figure and express themes of betrayal, anxiety, and loneliness. Her work was wholly autobiographical, inspired by her childhood trauma of discovering that her English governess was also her father’s mistress.
Bourgeois was born on 25 December 1911 in Paris, France. She was the middle child of three born to parents Josephine Fauriaux and Louis Bourgeois. Her parents owned a gallery that dealt primarily in antique tapestries. A few years after her birth, her family moved out of Paris and set up a workshop for tapestry restoration below their apartment in Choisy-le-Roi, for which Bourgeois filled in the designs where they had become worn.
Actors: Camille Guichard (director), Louise Bourgeois (actress), Martine Grouas (producer), Nicolas Jolly (editor), Anne Morieu (producer), William Chamay (producer), Martine Pignol (producer),
Genres: Documentary,