Knife-Woman: The Life of Louise Bourgeois

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

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as well as reproductions of her work, this landmark publication is the first major biography to draw on the artist’s unpublished personal archives, including diaries, correspondence, and psychoanalytic writings, as well as the many interviews she gave and the reminiscences of those who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.

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.