Images(3)

Spiral Woman

Artist Louise Bourgeois American, born France, 1911–2010

Date1984

MediumBronze figure and slate disk

Dimensions(Figure): 14 x 4 x 5 in. (35.6 x 10.2 x 12.7 cm)
Diam. (Disk): 34 1/2in. (87.6cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift of Lucy Daniels

Object number2017.11.1

On View

On view

Label TextDeeply personal, Bourgeois’s work speaks powerfully to universal issues of love and betrayal as well as female identity, beauty, and power. Psychologically charged, her works potently convey primal human emotions. She described her conflicted family life as her primary source and the creation of art as a way for her to come to terms with the past.

This sculpture of a tiny woman ensnared by a spiraling rope of hair and hanging above a black abyss has been described by the artist as both tied to her childhood and representative of the eternal struggle between freedom and control.
[L. Dougherty, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceWith Cheim & Read Gallery, New York, NY; sold to Lucy Daniels, Raleigh, NC, 1994; given to NCMA, 2017.
Published ReferencesHuston Paschal, Sacred and Fatal: The Art of Louise Bourgeois (exhibition brochure) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art 1998), illus. cover and 21, no. 13.

North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection," (Raleigh, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, 2024), illus. (color) 141.Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Sacred and Fatal: The Art of Louise Bourgeois,” March 8–May 31, 1998.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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