Louise Bourgeois is one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th Century. ‘Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010’ shares with the viewer an extraordinary grouping of works from the artist’s private collection. Exhibited publicly for the first time, the paintings, sculptures and works on paper reflect Bourgeois’s multiplicity of mind and material. Her exploration of self lives within the dreamscape of touch and expression shared in this exhibition. Embodiment as transient sublimation.

‘Louise Bourgeois. Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010’ forms a collection of highly personal memories and ideas that in turn reflect the complexity and intimacy of Bourgeois’s practice. The works presented span the breadth of the artist’s oeuvre, from a selection of plaster sculptures to previously unseen paintings, drawings and works on paper. Most of the works on paper were made during the last four years of Bourgeois’s life, and often feature words or phrases which evoke associations and memories. The interaction of image and text crystallizes the interplay of past and present. 

The exhibition is curated by Benjamin Shiff, who played a major role in the re-emergence of printmaking in Louise Bourgeois’s practice in the late 1980s, and who remained an important force in her creative use of the medium up until her last years. Unfolding across two galleries in Somerset, ‘Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010’ highlights the sensitivity and strength of Bourgeois’s artistic vision: ‘It is not an image I am seeking. It is not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving and of destroying.’