Louise Bourgeois

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois was born in Paris, where her parents restored antique tapestries. She studied mathematics at the Sorbonne before shifting to art at the École des Beaux-Arts and Fernand Léger's studio. In 1938, she moved to New York with her American husband, art historian Robert Goldwater.

Bourgeois worked through surrealist, abstract expressionist, and feminist idioms, using bronze, marble, fabric, and latex. In the 1990s, her towering bronze spider sculptures, particularly 'Maman', transformed public spaces worldwide, serving as monumental odes to her mother's strength, protection, and weaver artistry.