LOUISE BOURGEOIS | House

Ira M. Lowe Collection, Washington (acquired directly from the artist)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2011

Avignon, Collection Lambert en Avignon, Les Papesses: Louise Bourgeois, Camille Claudel, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Kiki Smith and Jana Sterbak, June - November 2013, p. 180, illustrated in colour

Eva Keller and Regula Malin, Eds., Louise Bourgeois: Emotions Abstracted, Zurich 2004, p. 93, no. 33, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good and original condition. All surface irregularities are in keeping with the artist's choice of media.
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Paris-born artist Louise Bourgeois is widely recognised for the personal and intimate quality of her sculptural work, which often addresses difficult themes such as grief and solitude. The artist’s oeuvre is almost entirely autobiographical and places particular emphasis on her numerous childhood traumas. The present work is a small-scale marble replica of her country home in Easton, Connecticut, where her family lived during her adulthood and whiched served as a recurrent theme in the sculptor’s prolific career. House, executed in 1984, possesses an endearing aura of reassurance and consolation due to its softly sculpted edges and off-white colouration. The artist’s attachment to her country house is rendered evident through the childlike execution of its architecture, as demonstrated by its absence of mathematical geometry, flawless lines, or clear curves. A close observation of the piece will allow viewers to sense the sculptor’s emotional investment in the house’s physical appearance, often generating a rare and precious moment of communion between both parties. Bourgeois utilised many materials to produce very different depictions of her country home, yet it is arguable that her marble sculptures are the most impressive as each one is unique and entirely handcrafted. Each version varies only slightly as some possess doors and windows, while others do not.

Symbolically-speaking, House captures the artist’s complex emotional state during a moment of cultural transition. Upon moving from France to America, Bourgeois experienced an acute sense of loss – a sentiment exacerbated by a loss of childhood innocence and naïveté, brought on by the realisation of her father’s incessant infidelity, her mother’s deteriorating health, and the succession of world wars ravaging her native country. Desperate to overcome the homesickness that submerged her, Bourgeois found solace in sculpture. She found comfort in the concrete character of this three-dimensional medium and discovered that the physical tangibility of sculpture was seldom separable from emotional intensity.

As explained by Jerry Gorovoy: “Through shape and line, material and texture, Bourgeois is able to give a palpable specificity to her memories. More than just marking time, and nostalgic reminiscing, Bourgeois wants through her sculpture to re-create the past, to have total recall to the emotions, to analyze the event, to control it, to correct it, and finally to forgive and forget it... Bourgeois’ sculptures mark a collection of traumas, fears, anxieties, resentments, and unfulfilled desires which through her sculptures she is able to exorcise” (Jerry Gorovoy cited in: Exh. Cat., Yokohama, Yokohama Museum of Art, Louise Bourgeois: Homesickness, 1997, n.p.). 

Despite its lack of windows and doors, Bourgeois’ eternally sealed and impenetrable country home offers viewers a glimpse into the artist’s complex emotional history, while keeping each and every one of her secrets safe within its marble walls - like the sepulchre that it truly is.