Louise Bourgeois - Editions & Works on Paper New York Friday, July 24, 2020 | Phillips

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  • Literature

    Museum of Modern Art Cat. 656.2

  • Catalogue Essay

    "The poor devils are climbing up step by step; they are trying their best. This will become the Myth of Sisyphus." - Louise Bourgeois


    Version one of Slow Climb was made in 1946-47 as an unnumbered and unpublished engraving and drypoint. Years later, the composition from version one was transferred to a new matrix for version two using photogravure.

    This second version of Slow Climb made circa 1990, also unnumbered and unpublished, was printed by Deli Sacilotto of Iris Editions. Sacilotto is a master printer who specialized in the photogravure technique. Bourgeois met Sacilotto through mutual friends and established a warm relationship with him.

  • Artist Biography

    Louise Bourgeois

    French-American • 1911 - 2010

    Known for her idiosyncratic style, Louise Bourgeois was a pioneering and iconic figure of twentieth and early twenty-first century art. Untied to an art historical movement, Bourgeois was a singular voice, both commanding and quiet.

    Bourgeois was a prolific printmaker, draftsman, sculptor and painter. She employed diverse materials including metal, fabric, wood, plaster, paper and paint in a range of scale — both monumental and intimate. She used recurring themes and subjects (animals, insects, architecture, the figure, text and abstraction) as form and metaphor to explore the fragility of relationships and the human body. Her artworks are meditations of emotional states: loneliness, jealousy, pride, anger, fear, love and longing.

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200

Montée Difficile (Slow Climb): Version 2

circa 1990
Photogravure, on Arches paper, with full margins.
I. 7 1/4 x 5 in. (18.4 x 12.7 cm)
S. 15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm)

Signed with initials in pencil (one of two known impressions of version 2), printed by Iris Editions, New York, not issued as a published edition, framed.

Estimate
$7,000 - 9,000 

Sold for $6,250

Contact Specialist
Kelly Troester
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Modern
+1 212 940 1221
ktroester@phillips.com

Cary Leibowitz
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Contemporary
1 212 940 1222
cleibowitz@phillips.com

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 23 - 24 July 2020