Germinal

Louise Bourgeois

1967–92

White marble

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

During her seventy-year career, Louise Bourgeois (Born 1911 in Paris; died 2010 in New York) became an artist of wide influence and art-historical importance. Her charged work, a distinctive mix of abstraction and figuration, delves into childhood memories and the emotional struggles of everyday life. Working in wood, bronze, marble, steel, rubber, and fabric, she created powerful objects that reference the body, sexuality, trauma, and anxiety. Among the motifs that appear most regularly in her work are breasts and penises. This imagery is often discussed from an autobiographical standpoint, as standing in for Bourgeois’s mother and