Spider (Bourgeois)

Not to be confused with Louise Bourgeois' similar sculpture, Maman (sculpture).
Spider

One edition at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
Artist Louise Bourgeois
Year 1996
Type Sculpture
Dimensions 2.82 m × 8.33 m × 7.9 m (9 ft 3 in × 27 ft 4 in × 26 ft)

Spider is a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois.[1] Executed in 1996 as an edition of six and cast in 1997; bronze with a silver nitrate patina, with the first of the edition being steel.[2]

An example was acquired by the Denver Art Museum for its new addition in 2006.[3] Other locations in permanent collections include the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, Washington DC,[4] and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri.[5]

Exhibitions

The steel Spider was exhibited at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal from April to September, 1996.[2] Various editions of this artwork have traveled extensively, including an example shown at the Hermitage Museum in 2001.[6]

Art market

In 2006, Bourgeois became the highest-paid living woman artist after a Spider sold for $4 million at Christie's in London; which was surpassed in 2008, when another Spider sold for $4.5 million.[7] A new record price for the artist was achieved when Spider number two acquired from Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, was auctioned by a private collector with an estimate of $4 million to $6 million. The price realized at Christie's on 8 November 2011 was $10,722,500.[2] This is the highest price paid for an artwork by a woman artist at the time.[8]

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spider by Louise Bourgeois.
  1. ↑ "Spider, (sculpture)". SIRIS
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) Spider". Sale 2480 / Lot 29. Christie's Inc. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  3. ↑ MacMillan, Kyle (10/05/2006). "Not all the art is within the walls". The Denver Post. Retrieved 18 November 2012. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ↑ "NGA : Sculpture Garden (3 of 17)".
  5. ↑ "Louise Bourgeois". Permanent Collection. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Ar. Retrieved 22 January 2014.
  6. ↑ "Louise Bourgeois's Spiders in the Hermitage". State Hermitage Museum.
  7. ↑ Felix Kessler (May 31, 2010), Louise Bourgeois, Sculptor of Freaky Giant Spiders, Dies at 98 Bloomberg.
  8. ↑ "The price of being female: Post-war artists at auction". Prospero blog (The Economist). 25 May 2012. Retrieved 21 January 2014.

External links