Bourgeois, Louise - Cumul I (1969) marble sculpture - art postcard

Art Postcard
• Work of art title: Cumul I (1969)
• Artist (if known): Louise Bourgeois
• Media or other details:  marble sculpture
• Publisher / Gallery: Tate Gallery, London
• Postally used:  no - has number in pencil
• Stamp & postmark details (if relevant): na
• Size: modern
• Notes & condition details:

NOTES:

Size: 'Modern' is usually around 6in x 4in / 'Old Standard' is usually around 5 1/2in x 3 1/2in. Larger sizes mentioned, but if you need to know the exact size please ask.

All postcards are not totally new and are pre-owned. It's inevitable that older cards may show signs of ageing and use, particularly sent through the post. Any faults other than normal ageing are noted.

Stock No.: A628

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information:

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Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (French: [lwiz bu??wa]; 25 December 1911 – 31 May 2010),^[1] was a French-American artist and sculptor. She was an influential figure in modern and contemporary art, and among her works of art were large spider structures which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman.^[2] Her largest spider sculpture titled Maman stands at over 30 feet (9.1 m) and has been installed in numerous locations around the world.^[3] She became recognized as the founder of confessional art.^[4]

In the late 1940s, after moving to New York City with her American husband, Robert Goldwater, she turned to sculpture. Her works often express themes of betrayal, anxiety, and loneliness.^[4]

Bourgeois was born on 25 December 1911 in Paris, France.^[5] She was the third child of four born to parents Josephine Fauriaux and Louis Bourgeois.^[6] Her parents owned a gallery that dealt primarily in antique tapestries. A few years after her birth, her family moved out of Paris and set up a workshop for tapestry restoration below their apartment in Choisy-le-Roi, for which Bourgeois filled in the designs where they had become worn.^[5][7]

By 1924 her father, a tyrannical philanderer, was indulging in an extended affair with her English teacher and nanny.^[8] According to Bourgeois, her mother, Josephine, “an intelligent, patient and enduring, if not calculating, person,” was aware of her husband's infidelity, but found it easier to turn a blind eye. Bourgeois, an alert little girl, hoarded her memories in her diaries.^[9]

As a child, Bourgeois did not meet her father's expectations due to her lack of ability. Eventually, he came to adore her for her talent and spirit, but she continued to hate him for his explosive temper, domination of the household, and for teasing her in front of others.^[8]

In 1930, Bourgeois entered the Sorbonne to study mathematics and geometry, subjects that she valued for their stability,^[8][10] saying ""I got peace of mind, only through the study of rules nobody could change.""^[10]

Her mother died in 1932, while Bourgeois was studying mathematics. Her mother's death inspired her to abandon mathematics and to begin studying art. Her father thought modern artists were wastrels and refused to support her. She continued to study art by joining classes where translators were needed for English-speaking students, in which those translators were not charged tuition. In one such class Fernand Léger saw her work and told her she was a sculptor, not a painter.^[8]

Bourgeois graduated from the Sorbonne in 1935, and continued to study art at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where she studied from 1937 to 1938 and at various other art schools, such as the École du Louvre and the École des Beaux-Arts. During the time in which she was enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, she turned to her father's infidelities for inspiration. She discovered her creative impulse in her childhood traumas and tensions.^[9]

Bourgeois had a desire for first-hand experience, and frequently visited studios in Paris, learning techniques from the artists and assisting with exhibitions.^[11]

Bourgeois briefly opened a print store beside her father's tapestry workshop. Her father helped her on the grounds that she had entered into a commerce-driven profession.^[8]

Bourgeois met her husband Robert Goldwater, an American art historian noted for his pioneering work in the field then referred to as primitive art, in 1938 at Bourgeois' print store. Goldwater had visited the store to purchase a selection of prints by Pablo Picasso, and ""in between talks about surrealism and the latest trends, [they] got married."" They emigrated to New York City the same year, where Goldwater resumed his career as professor of the arts at New York University Institute of Fine Arts,^[8] while Bourgeois attended the Art Students League of New York, studying painting under Vaclav Vytlacil, and also producing sculptures and prints.^[10]

Bourgeois had been unable to conceive by 1939, so she and Goldwater briefly returned to France to adopt a French child, Michel. However, in 1940, she gave birth to another son, Jean-Louis, and in 1941, she gave birth to Alain.^[8]

For Bourgeois the early 1940s represented the difficulties of a transition to a new country and the struggle to enter the exhibition world of New York City. Her work during this time was constructed from junkyard scraps and driftwood which she used to carve upright wood sculptures. The impurities of the wood were then camouflaged with paint, after which nails were employed to invent holes and scratches in the endeavor to portray some emotion. The Sleeping Figure is one such example which depicts a war figure that is unable to face the real world due to vulnerability. Throughout her life, Bourgeois' work was created from revisiting of her own troubled past as she found inspiration and temporary catharsis from her childhood years and the abuse she suffered from her father. Slowly she developed more artistic confidence, although her middle years are more opaque, which might be due to the fact that she received very little attention from the art world despite having her first solo show in 1945.^[12]

In 1954, Bourgeois joined the American Abstract Artists Group, with several contemporaries, among them Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. At this time she also befriended the artists Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock.^[11] As part of the American Abstract Artists Group, Bourgeois made the transition from wood and upright structures to marble, plaster and bronze as she investigated concerns like fear, vulnerability and loss of control. This transition was a turning point. She referred to her art as a series or sequence closely related to days and circumstances, describing her early work as the fear of falling which later transformed into the art of falling and the final evolution as the art of hanging in there. Her conflicts in real life empowered her to authenticate her experiences and struggles through a unique art form. In 1958, Bourgeois and her husband moved into a terraced house at West 22nd Street, in Chelsea, Manhattan, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life.^[8]

Despite the fact that she rejected the idea that her art was feminist, Borgeois’ subject was the feminine. Works such as Femme Maison (1946-1947), Torso self portrait (1963-1964), Arch of Hysteria (1993), all depict the feminine body. Sexually explicit sculptures such as Janus Fleuri, (1968) show she was not afraid to use the female form in new ways. ^[13] She has been quoted to say “My work deals with problems that are pre-gender,"" she wrote. ""For example, jealousy is not male or female."" ^[14]

In 1973, Bourgeois started teaching at the Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, Brooklyn College and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. She also taught for many years in the public schools in Great Neck, Long Island.

In the early 1970’s, Bourgeois would hold gatherings called “Sunday, bloody Sundays” at her home in Chelsea. During these salons, young artist and students would have their work critiqued by Bourgeois. These salons would be filled with young artists and students whose work would be critiqued by Bourgeois.” Bourgeois ruthlessness in critique and her dry sense of humor lead to the naming of these meetings. Bourgeois inspired many young students to make art that was feminist in nature. ^[15]

Bourgeois aligned herself with activists and became a member of the Fight Censorship Group, a feminist anti-censorship collective founded by fellow artist Anita Steckel. In the 1970's, thie group defended the use of sexual imagery in artwork.^[16] Steckel argued, “If the erect penis is not wholesome enough to go into museums, it should not be considered wholesome enough to go into women.”^[17]

Bourgeois received her first retrospective in 1982, by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Until then, she had been a peripheral figure in art whose work was more admired than acclaimed. In an interview with Artforum, timed to coincide with the opening of her retrospective, she revealed that the imagery in her sculptures was wholly autobiographical. She shared with the world that she obsessively relived through her art the trauma of discovering, as a child, that her English governess was also her father’s mistress.^[4][18]

Bourgeois had another retrospective in 1989 at Documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany.^[12] In 1993, when the Royal Academy of Arts staged its comprehensive survey of American art in the 20th century, the organizers did not consider Bourgeois' work of significant importance to include in the survey.^[4] However, this survey was criticized for many omissions, with one critic writing that ""whole sections of the best American art have been wiped out"" and pointing out that very few women were included.^[19] In 2000 her works were selected to be shown at the opening of the Tate Modern in London.^[12] In 2001, she showed at the Hermitage Museum.^[20]

In 2010, in the last year of her life, Bourgeois used her art to speak up for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) equality. She created the piece I Do, depicting two flowers growing from one stem, to benefit the nonprofit organization Freedom to Marry. Bourgeois has said ""Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.""^[21] Bourgeois had a history of activism on behalf of LGBT equality, having created artwork for the AIDS activist organization ACT UP in 1993.^[22]

In 2011 one of her works titled Spider, sold for $10.7 million, a new record price for the artist at auction,^[23] and the highest price paid for a work by a woman.^[24]

type=printed postcards

theme=artists signed

sub-theme=art

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted