The first major biography on artist Louise Bourgeois brings the life and work of an iconic twentieth-century artist into sharp focus

“The mischievous French artist comes alive in this deeply personal biography.”—Chloë Ashby, Times (UK)
 
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) was one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. She is known for a body of work that spans sculpture, painting, and printmaking but eludes any aesthetic classification. Her life and art were so intertwined that it is often difficult to tell them apart. In her own words: “Sculpture is the body. My body is the sculpture.”
 
Marie-Laure Bernadac’s biography of Bourgeois traces the career of a great artist, her training, and her influences, as it tells the story of an exceptional woman’s life. Featuring personal photographs as well as reproductions of her work, this landmark publication is the first major biography to draw on the artist’s unpublished personal archives, including diaries, correspondence, and psychoanalytic writings, as well as the many interviews she gave and the reminiscences of those who knew her. Bernadac elucidates Bourgeois’s friendships and rivalries with other major figures, including sculptor Louise Nevelson and Museum of Modern Art director Alfred H. Barr Jr. She also draws on Bourgeois’s well-known fascination with psychoanalysis to explore the deeply autobiographical nature of her artwork. This erudite and keenly insightful biography pays tribute to the talent of the artist and the complexity of the person.

“The mischievous French artist comes alive in this deeply personal biography.”—Chloë Ashby, Times (UK)

“Fullest account to date of the life of one of the most influential artists of the last century. But it also delivers, as the best biographies do, a coherent and consistently stimulating interpretation of the wellsprings of Bourgeois’s art.”—Christoph Irmscher, Art Newspaper

“Writing the first comprehensive biography of a major artist could prove daunting, but taking on Bourgeois’s long life in art might be called heroic. . . . Vivid and thorough, . . . Bernadac’s book is an impressive undertaking.”—Bridget Quinn, Hyperallergic

“The book charts Bourgeois’s performances, her fierce independence, and the visceral, often disconcerting work that fused dreams, memory, anatomy, and autobiography over her seven-decade career. Throughout, Bourgeois’s singular voice slices through.”—Artnet, “8 Standout Art Books to Gift (or Keep) This Season”

“An insightful study of [Bourgeois’] work.”—Apollo

Listed by Hyperallergic in “12 Art Books to Read This Fall”

“In Knife-Woman, Louise Bourgeois is revealed as a complex, self-analyzing, and profound artist—embedded and respected in both the New York and Paris art worlds, impassioned by materials, and worldly and introspective. Her penchant for living for work was periodically arrested by the agony of depression, yet this never stopped the flow of wit, insight, and creative energy.”—Griselda Pollock, author of After-Affects/After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum

“Bernadac’s remarkable biography has made the telling of Louis Bourgeois’s life into a new art. Bernadac’s alive present tense and thoughtful recollections coexist in the text—simultaneously one lives with Louise and learns all there is to know about her.”—Juliet Mitchell, University of Cambridge

“Marie-Laure Bernadac’s brilliant biography provides a treasure trove of fascinating insights into an extraordinary artist's life and introduces a new generation of artists and scholars to her work.”—Jo Applin, author of Eccentric Objects: Rethinking Sculpture in 1960s America (Yale, 2012)

Marie-Laure Bernadac is a former curator at the Louvre, Musée Picasso, Centre Pompidou, and the CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux and a leading specialist on Louise Bourgeois. Lauren Elkin is an award-winning writer and translator. Her books include Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art.