Louise Bourgeois quotes

Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist and sculptor, recognized for her large-scale installations and exploration of themes like family and memory. Her work often drew from personal experiences and delved into the subconscious. She became one of the most influential figures in modern and contemporary art. Here are 24 of her quotes:

The feminists took me as a role model, as a mother. It bothers me. I am not interested in being a mother. I am still a girl trying to understand myself.

Louise Bourgeois

What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach. This is a painful situation, and modern art is about this painful situation of having no absolutely definite way of expressing yourself.

Louise Bourgeois

Women had to work like slaves in the art world, but a lot of men got to the top through their charm. And it hurt them. To be young and pretty didn't help a woman in the art world, because the social scene, and the buying scene, was in the hands of women – women who had money. They wanted male artists who would come alone and be their charming guests. Rothko could be very charming. It was a court. And the artist buffoons came to the court to entertain, to charm. Now it has changed, now the younger men are in – older women and younger men.

Louise Bourgeois

I do not need the musing of the philosophers to tell me what I am doing. It would be more interesting to let me know why I am doing it.

Louise Bourgeois

I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.

Louise Bourgeois

Tell your own story, and you will be interesting.

Louise Bourgeois

To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence.

Louise Bourgeois

I was raised a Catholic. But I am not religious. In my work, I am interested in real flesh and blood.

Louise Bourgeois

I have kept a diary as long as I can remember, and drawings are really another kind of diary.

Louise Bourgeois

It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.

Louise Bourgeois

Art is a guaranty of sanity.

Louise Bourgeois

England is very, very important to me, because in my family the English could do no wrong. When my father picked a mistress, it was always an English girl: if he made her pregnant, she could be shipped back to England and he would not be held responsible. It never happened, but I've made a lot of work called The English Can Do No Wrong.

Louise Bourgeois

My art is a form of restoration in terms of my feelings to myself and to others.

Louise Bourgeois

When my mother died, I fell apart. My father wanted to control me. As a consequence, I ran away to America.

Louise Bourgeois

Even though what I do does enter the market, it doesn't interest me. I am exclusively concerned with the formal qualities of my work. It is about the need and the right to self-expression.

Louise Bourgeois

My memories are moth-eaten.

Louise Bourgeois

I need my memories. They are my documents.

Louise Bourgeois

Look at it this way - a totem pole is just a decorated tree. My work is a confessional.

Louise Bourgeois

My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama.

Louise Bourgeois

I dont watch TV. I dont use a computer, a fax or a cellphone.

Louise Bourgeois

I was a runaway girl from France who married an American and moved to New York City. Im not sure I would have continued as an artist had I remained in Paris because of the family setup.

Louise Bourgeois