91³Ô¹ÏÍø

20 Jun – 14 Sep 2025
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, Floor 1

For celebrated artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), drawing was like an intimate journal, a practice that began when she was young, and remained a constant element of her artistic life.Ìý

To coincide with the exhibition Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, this focused display will present a group of drawings by Bourgeois from the 1960s, mostly on loan from The Easton Foundation of New York. These dreamlike works illustrate the central role of drawing in her work and the way it intertwined with her sculptural practice during those years.Ìý

Abstract shapes, predominantly round and colourful, occupy small and large sheets of paper. ‘Drawings are thought feathers’ Bourgeois said, ‘ideas that I seize in mid-flight and put down on paper’. Drawn in rhythmic movements, these drawings reflect the spontaneity of Bourgeois’s mark-making and reveal an artist who was less concerned with a finished product, but rather with the immediacy of the experience. For Bourgeois, the abstract drawings “come from a deep need to achieve peace, rest, and sleep. They… relate to unconscious memories’.

The display will be presented in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, co-curated by Professor Jo Applin, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the History of Art and Dr Ketty Gottardo, Martin Halusa Senior Curator of Drawings at 91³Ô¹ÏÍøGallery. The display will present a bold group of drawings by Bourgeois, revealing the central role of drawing in her work and its influence on her sculptural practice.

This display is included in the Permanent Collection or Permanent Collection + Exhibition ticket.

Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams will be on display in the Denise Coates Exhibitions Gallery, Floor 3 from 20 Jun – 14 Sep 2025.

The programme of displays in the Drawings Gallery is generously supported by the International Music and Art Foundation, with additional support from James Bartos. Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960sÌýis also supported by the Tavolozza Foundation.