Among Louise Bourgeois' most famous pieces are a series of giant spiders presented as symbols of the mother, and entitled "Maman", with one standing more than 30 feet (nine metres) high outside the National Gallery of Canada.
Here's a picture of one of Louise Bourgeois sculptures.
In 1982, the then-70-year-old Louise Bourgeois gained notoriety after a showing at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She has since earned the title of “mother of American feminist identity art” by Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes for her explicit sculptures depicting notions of life and death through a feminine lens.
Her sculptures were often made of metal, wood or rubber and would often use an emotionally agressive theme. Underlying all of her work, however, was the idea that the fragile human body had a need for nurture and care in a dangerous world.
In 1997, Bourgeois received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton. She was also recently induced into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
In a 1984 interview with the Washington Post, Louise said: “I really want to worry people, to bother people, they say they are bothered by the double genitalia in my new work. Well, I have been bothered by it my whole life. I once said to my children, `It’s only physiological, you know, the sex drive.’ That was a lie. It’s much more than that.”
Louise Bourgeois's husband died in 1973. She is survived by two sons, Alain and Jean-Louis, as well as two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. A third son, Michel, died in 1990.
