About the Art:
Spiral Woman
1951-52
Wood and steel
62 1/2 x 12 x 12 inches
The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women
In the 1950’s, the swirling and suspended humanlike figures created by Bourgeois in her series of spiral women started to take shape. Here we see Spiral Woman which explores the abstract form and dynamism of the spiral by stacking blocks of wood on a steel rod. Influenced by surrealism, the spiral stacking becomes rounded, implying flesh and folds, a twisted figure of a human spine in great pain. The spiral form represents a complex interplay of control, freedom, and the ongoing cycle of life, often linked to Bourgeois’ personal experiences and emotional landscape, a way of controlling chaos.
About the Artist:
Louise Bourgeois (French, b. 1911). She is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art but was also a painter and printmaker. Although not formally affiliated with a particular art movement, her work has a lot in common with abstract expressionists and Surrealism. Bourgeois began her career in art in her parents’ tapestry workshop in France. She began studying art in 1932. At the age of 27 She married Robert Goldwater and moved to New York. Bourgeois engaged a wide array of tactics, from enlargement to suspension and assemblage, to probe the human condition: its pain, fragility, violence, eroticism, and complexity.