Lousie Bourgeois, force of nature and icon of contemporary art.
The French/American artist Louise Bourgeois lived until she was almost 100 years old, worked in a wide range of different media, and enjoyed producing controversial, provocative, and attention-grabbing pieces which ceaselessly explored themes such as sexuality, memory, jealousy, anger, and the psyche.
Despite this, it was only in her later years that she began to garner critical acclaim. She is now considered a pioneer and an icon of feminist art, though she preferred to consider her work as “pre-gender”. In the past 20 years, sales of Bourgeois’ pieces have slowly but steadily increased, with interest being particularly strong in the US and the UK. Bourgeois’ prints account for 54% of her work sold at auction, and they usually fetch somewhere in the region of £1,000 to £5,000.
Below is a list of Louise Bourgeois’ seven most sought-after prints. If you would like to find out more about how much a Louise Bourgeois print might be worth, and how to sell it, get in touch with Mark Littler today.
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He Disappeared Into Complete Silence
Louise Bourgeois’s illustrated book, He Disappeared into Complete Silence, was first published in 1947. It consisted of nine black and white engravings accompanied by parables the artist herself had written, and which the poet, Marius Bewley, described as “tiny tragedies of human frustration”. Bourgeois’ aim in publishing the book was to increase her own fame in the United States, having moved to New York from Paris with her husband in 1938.
The images in He Disappeared into Complete Silence are inspired by New York’s urban skyline, and they explore themes of communication, love, anger, and loneliness. Bourgeois worked hard to market the book, but, ultimately, it was not a success until her fame increased later in life. Since then, it has grown immensely in popularity: this particular edition was sold for £299,212 by Christie’s in April 2018.
He Disappeared into Complete Silence sold by Christie’s in 2018
Hang On!!
It isn’t simply Louise Bourgeois’ early work that is sought after, however. This portfolio of 17 prints was created when Bourgeois was in her nineties, and it was sold by Sotheby’s in April 2023 for £160,000. As with He Disappeared into Complete Silence, the images in Hang On!! are accompanied by text written by the artist. The text is a strange but beautiful mixture between poems and streams of consciousness, detailing Bourgeois’ desires, hopes, and fears, and exploring the cycle of birth, life, and death. As with much of Louise Bourgeois’ work, the mother is a central figure in these prints, allowing the artist to explore her own complex past and her deep interest in personal and familial relationships.
Hang On! sold by Sotheby’s in 2023
I See You!!!
This 2007 etching was sold by Christie’s in June 2012 for £85,000, and it returns to one of Louise Bourgeois’ enduring motifs: eyes. Bourgeois’ work with eyes often questions who is looking at whom, and for what purpose. Eyes appear regularly in the artist’s sculptures, and she once said: “eyes relate to seduction, flirtation, and voyeurism.” They are also used as a metaphor for things that may not really be there, with the artist stating she saw no difference between “eyes that see the reality of things or… eyes that see your fantasy.”
I See You!!! sold by Christie’s in 2012
Untitled
Sexuality is undeniably one of the main themes in Bourgeois’ work, and her candid, open exploration of the subject quickly marked her out as a fearless, assertive, and – at times – deliberately provocative artist. Untitled is an engraving with India ink created in 2002, and it was sold by Phillips in May 2022 for £64,000. There are sexual undertones to the image, yet it also explores the spiral, an abstract motif that fascinated Bourgeois, and which she once called “an attempt at controlling the chaos.”
Untitled sold by Phillip’s in 2022
Yes
Words become abstract patterns in this 2004 soft-ground etching, which was sold by Phillips in January 2018 for £62,000. The repetition of ‘YES’ 18 times across the paper in different colours has the bizarre effect of rendering the words meaningless in one sense, and in another leaving no room for argument. It is as if the artist condensed her affirmatory, relentless, determined personality into one word and then just emblazoned it across the page for all to see, perhaps in the hope it would inspire others.
Yes sold by Phillip’s in 2018
Untitled
Although Bourgeois’ family owned a tapestry restoration shop when she was a child, it was only in the 1990s that she really began to incorporate fabric into her work, in both her sculptures and her prints.
Untitled is a serigraph from 2002 which was sold by Galerie Kornfeld Auktionen in September 2021 for £54,841. The image is inspired by one that appeared in Ode à l’Oubli, a unique book of fabric collages created from the artist’s wedding trousseau and scraps of old clothing and household items. Four of the compositions in the book were subsequently made into plates so prints could be created separately.
Untitled sold by Kornfeld in 2021
What Is The Shape Of This Problem?
This set of nine letterpress and lithography diptychs was sold by Phillips in April 2022 for £52,274. It combines Bourgeois’ interest in words and her love of abstract, geometric patterns (a remnant of her time spent studying Mathematics at the Sorbonne).
The text provides a fascinating insight into the complex artist’s psyche, as it was taken from her diary entries, spanning a period of about 40 years. The snippets of text vary, from the hopeful (“The papillion, the ray of hope”) to the despairing (“I pick on everyone, dead or alive”). One piece of text is particularly interesting, and in many ways, it sums up the driving force behind all of Bourgeois’ work: “Art is a guarantee of sanity.”
What Is The Shape Of This Problem? sold by Phillips in 2022
