Untitled

Louise BourgeoisWW-1949-133920

1949·Black ballpoint pen and fiber-tipped pen on cream wove paper·29.2 × 17.7 cm (11 1/2 × 7 in.)

Untitled (1949) is significant within Louise Bourgeois’s drawing oeuvre because it codifies an important aspect of her early visual language. She was working on totemic sculptures when she made it, which is articulated by the drawing’s central vertical form. The hairlike strands that drape the central form are bulbous on one side and pointed like a spider leg on the other. Untitled is characterized by an immediacy of mark making; Bourgeois gesturally defined the inside of forms with quick marks of her pen. By implying a ground plane and compressing the image’s negative shapes, she created a cramped, psychologically charged interior space.

Catalogue

Year: 1949
Medium: Black ballpoint pen and fiber-tipped pen on cream wove paper
Dimensions: 29.2 × 17.7 cm (11 1/2 × 7 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Louise Bourgeois

Artist

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois was a prolific 20th century artist who experimented with a wide range of media, materials, subjects and themes; as such, categorizing or situating her work in one distinct artistic movement remains nearly impossible. She has been linked to Surrealism, American Abstraction and Feminist Art and is well known for her large-scale sculptured and installations, though she also produced many paintings, drawings and textiles. Her work mined themes of family, motherhood, sexuality and the subconscious and the experience of the female body.

Paris, France

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