About Louise Bourgeois
Made art in obscurity for forty years, had her first retrospective at seventy, and built giant spiders as tributes to her mother the tapestry weaver.
Where to see Louise Bourgeois
Ranked by works you can see in person.
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29 works
Mu.ZEE - Kunstmuseum aan Zee
Ostend, Belgium
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8 worksMuseum of Modern Art
Midtown Manhattan, United States
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5 works
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C., United States
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3 worksSmithsonian American Art Museum
Old Patent Office Building, United States
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2 works
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, United States
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2 worksMetropolitan Museum of Art
New York City, United States
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2 works
Musée National d'Art Moderne
Centre Pompidou-Metz, France
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1 works
National Galleries Scotland
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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1 works
Tate Modern
Bankside, United Kingdom
Also here (4)
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1 worksGuggenheim Museum Bilbao
Abando, Spain
View all 15 museums
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1 works
National Gallery of Canada
Rideau-Vanier Ward, Canada
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1 works
Maison de Balzac
Paris, France
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1 works
Kröller-Müller Museum
Otterlo, Netherlands
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1 works
Wallonia-Brussels Federation Museum of Contemporary Arts
Grand Hornu, Belgium
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1 works
Cleveland Museum of Art
Wade Park, United States
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I see Louise Bourgeois art?
Louise Bourgeois's works can be seen at Mu.ZEE - Kunstmuseum aan Zee, Sculptures in the National Gallery of Art[4], National Gallery of Art, and 2 other museums worldwide.When did Louise Bourgeois start making art?
Louise Bourgeois grew up in an apartment above a gallery where her parents repaired and sold tapestries. She produced three-dimensional art that often expressed her childhood experiences and emotions.Why did Louise Bourgeois like spiders?
Louise Bourgeois said that the spider was a reference to her industrious and protective mother. She stated that, like a spider, her mother was a weaver.Is Louise Bourgeois a contemporary artist?
Louise Bourgeois continued working past her ninety-eighth birthday, and died in 2010, which may qualify her as a contemporary artist.Why did Louise Bourgeois create maman?
Louise Bourgeois created the giant spider sculptures, called Maman, as tributes to her mother. She described her mother as patient, useful, protective, and always weaving.Was Louise Bourgeois a feminist?
It is suggested that Louise Bourgeois was dealing with gender differentiation in the context of Freudian psychology in her art of the 1940s and 1950s. Although Bourgeois may not have read Lacan until the 1970s, it is suggested that she was likely to have known his ideas as early as the 1930s. Her work tends to be characterised by issues relating to parenthood, the male form, and childhood.When did Louise Bourgeois became famous?
Louise Bourgeois did not become famous until she was seventy. The Museum of Modern Art[5] gave her a retrospective in 1982, and the art world discovered a body of work that had been accumulating for four decades.
Sources
Where to See guide aggregates verified holdings of Louise Bourgeois's works across the following collections.
- [1] museum National Galleries Scotland Used for: museum holdings.
- [2] museum Tate Modern Used for: museum holdings.
- [3] museum Cleveland Museum of Art Used for: museum holdings.
- [4] museum National Gallery of Art Used for: museum holdings.
- [5] museum Museum of Modern Art Used for: museum holdings.
- [6] museum Wallonia-Brussels Federation Museum of Contemporary Arts Used for: museum holdings.
- [7] book Jed Perl, Art in America 1945-1970 Used for: biography.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-07-02. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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