Gouache on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351" aria-label="More by Louise Bourgeois" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Louise Bourgeois</a>
Femme
ARTIST ROOMS
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of The Easton Foundation 2013
<p><span>Femme </span>2007 is a work in red gouache on paper that depicts an ostensibly female form. The figure is portrayed in outline only, her body visible down to the knee, with the lower legs and feet not pictured. The shape of her breasts, navel, vulva and upper thighs are each picked out in single brushstrokes. Her face has no features and her arms are obscured by brushstrokes emanating from the top of the head and continuing to the base of the painting, depicting the figure’s hair. The paint appears smudged in some areas, potentially where it has been mixed with water, reducing the vivid red of the gouache to shades of pink. The artist has included her initials (‘LB’) in black at the bottom right corner of the painting.</p>
paper unique gouache
26 October 2013 – 18 May 2014
2014-05-18
26 October 2013 – 18 May 2014
2014-05-18
2013-10-26
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2013-10-26
ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois
Collection based display
18 July 2014 – 12 October 2014
2014-10-12
18 July 2014 – 12 October 2014
2014-10-12
2014-07-18
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Middlesbrough, UK)
http://www.visitmima.com/
2014-07-18
ARTIST ROOMS 2014: Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
16 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
16 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
2015-01-16
Southampton City Art Gallery (Southampton, UK)
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/leisure/arts
2015-01-16
ARTIST ROOMS 2015: Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
6 July 2021 – 16 January 2022
2022-01-16
6 July 2021 – 16 January 2022
2022-01-16
2021-07-06
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2021-07-06
ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois
Collection based display
23 July 2022 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
23 July 2022 – 19 November 2022
2022-11-19
2022-07-23
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum (Rugby, UK)
8 July 2023 – 9 September 2023
2023-09-09
2023-07-08
Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool, UK)
18 November 2023 – 11 February 2024
2024-02-11
2023-11-18
Burton Art Gallery and Museum (Bideford, UK)
2 March 2024 – 9 June 2024
2024-06-09
2024-03-02
Aberdeen Art Gallery (Aberdeen, UK)
http://www.aagm.co.uk
6 July 2024 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
2024-07-06
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
2022-07-23
Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
Femme
frame: 680 × 543 × 40 mm
image: 597 × 457 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of The Easton Foundation 2013
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<p>
<i>Femme </i>2007 is a work in red gouache on paper that depicts an ostensibly female form. The figure is portrayed in outline only, her body visible down to the knee, with the lower legs and feet not pictured. The shape of her breasts, navel, vulva and upper thighs are each picked out in single brushstrokes. Her face has no features and her arms are obscured by brushstrokes emanating from the top of the head and continuing to the base of the painting, depicting the figure’s hair. The paint appears smudged in some areas, potentially where it has been mixed with water, reducing the vivid red of the gouache to shades of pink. The artist has included her initials (‘LB’) in black at the bottom right corner of the painting.</p>
<p>Bourgeois’s use of the colour red is a recurring characteristic of her artistic practice. The artist employed the colour often in her work in order to refer to the extremes of human emotion. In a statement first published in 1992, Bourgeois said: ‘Red is an affirmation at any cost – regardless of the dangers in fighting – of contradiction, of aggression. It’s symbolic of the intensity of the emotions involved.’ (Quoted in Askew and d’Offay 2013, p.85.) She went into more detail regarding her thoughts on the multiple connotations of the colour when she wrote:</p>
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</p><blockquote>Red is the colour of blood.<br/>Red is the colour of paint.<br/>Red is the colour of violence.<br/>Red is the colour of danger.<br/>Red is the colour of shame.<br/>Red is the colour of jealousy.<br/>Red is the colour of grudges.<br/>Red is the colour of blame.<br/>(Quoted in Morris 2007, p.83.)</blockquote>
<p>The colour red also appears in Bourgeois’s other works on paper such as <i>À L’Infini </i>2008–9 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-a-linfini-al00357" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00357</span></a>) and <i>10 am is When You Come to Me </i>2006 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-10-am-is-when-you-come-to-me-al00345" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00345</span></a>), where it is again used to represent the extremes of human emotion. In <i>Femme </i>the colour may signify the sexuality of the female figure, the warmth of the human body or the blood that can be present at both birth and death.</p>
<p>The title of the work suggests that the figure is representative of womankind in general, which may explain why her face is without features that would make her recognisable. She is also reminiscent of the female figure in Bourgeois’s <i>Nature Study</i> 1986 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-nature-study-al00228" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00228</span></a>), who has little definition in her facial features and has long hair that ultimately forms the spiral from which a hand emerges to support her in a depiction of the cycle of motherhood, birth and rebirth. The figures in both <i>Nature Study </i>and <i>Femme </i>appear to have no arms, suggesting a degree of vulnerability. Again, this contrasting depiction of strength, sexuality and vulnerability may be intended to represent all women as opposed to an individual female.</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Mignon Nixon, <i>Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a Story of Modern Art</i>, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London 2005.<br/>Frances Morris (ed.), <i>Louise Bourgeois</i>,<i> </i>exhibition catalogue, Tate Modern, London 2007.<br/>Lucy Askew and Anthony d’Offay, <i>Louise Bourgeois: A Woman Without Secrets</i>, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2013, reproduced p.63.</p>
<p>Allan Madden<br/>The University of Edinburgh<br/>December 2015</p>
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<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS.</i>
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Summary
2017-05-10T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT