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Woman House (Femme Maison)

1984; printed 1990
Louise Bourgeois (American (born France), 1911–2010) Printed at Atelier Crommelynck, Paris Printed by Piero Crommelynck (French, 1934–2001) Published by Galerie Lelong, Paris

Louise Bourgeois’s Woman House (Femme Maison) confronts notions of femininity and domesticity. She depicts a nude female figure whose upper half has been replaced by a large house, revisiting woman/house hybrid imagery that she first explored through a series of works in the mid-1940s.

The ordered structure of the architecture clashes with the organic forms of the body, creating a dissonance that evokes the struggles of women in the domestic sphere. For many women of the time, the home could be a refuge as well as a prison. Yet, Bourgeois’s work remains playful, with the figure raising one of its diminutive arms to wave at the viewer.


Object Details

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