MoMA Completes Online Catalogue Raisonné of Louise Bourgeois Prints

After over eight years of research, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has completed and launched Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books, an online catalogue raisonné documenting all of the French artist's print works. The digital resource includes 5,410 sheets and is hosted on MoMA's website. The project was led by curator Deborah Wye, who organized Bourgeois's first sculpture retrospective at MoMA in 1982. The museum's relationship with Bourgeois dates back to 1947 when founding director Alfred H. Barr acquired her book of engravings He Disappeared into Complete Silence, followed by the sculpture Sleeping Figure in 1951. Bourgeois donated part of her archive to MoMA in 1990, and the museum now holds 3,271 prints and books. The online catalogue features interactive tools for zooming and comparing works, and allows browsing by themes, techniques, portfolios, series, publishers, and printers. Bourgeois, who died in New York in 2010, returned to printmaking in the 1980s after focusing on sculpture, installing a press in her studio and collaborating with printers and publishers. The website traces her evolving relationship with printmaking and serves as both a scholarly resource and a public experience.