Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) is one of the most celebrated and influential figures in modern and contemporary art. ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois brings together works from the last twenty years of her life, a period of extraordinary creativity, alongside a small number of earlier pieces from her remarkable seven-decade career. A sculptor of immense distinction, her extraordinary and inventive work received international acclaim in her lifetime. She is perhaps best known for the large-scale spider sculptures that she produced in the last decades of her life, including the one she created for the opening of Tate Modern in 2000.

Bourgeois’s art was closely bound up with her life, and she used art-making to express and investigate her experiences and memories. Ranging from large-scale sculpture and installation to painting and textiles, her art often explores the same ideas in different forms, with an unflinching emotional honesty. Bourgeois’s work is both autobiographical and universal. Using a variety of materials, she gives shape to themes of childhood, family, isolation, sexuality and gender identity, with a focus on the human form and emotional experience.

The ARTIST ROOMS programme and collection is managed by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland with the support of Art Fund, Henry Moore Foundation and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and Creative Scotland. Its founding collection was established through The d’Offay Donation in 2008 with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund and the Scottish and British Governments.