Untitled (No. 2)

1996

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Bourgeois’s two hands engaged in an intimate caress sit incongruously on a roughly chiseled, seemingly unfinished base. In the early 1930s Bourgeois studied with Charles Despiau, one of Rodin’s assistants; she may well have learned about Rodin’s marble sculptures of hands from Despiau. Later, in 1967–68, she traveled to Pietrasanta, Italy, where she discovered the same marble quarries from which Michelangelo sourced his material. It was at this point that Bourgeois adopted the medium. As the artist once said of the difficult task of working in marble, "You have to win the shape." Her fight to conquer the block of marble is left visible here.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Untitled (No. 2)
Artist: Louise Bourgeois (American, Paris 1911–2010 New York)
Date: 1996
Geography: Country of Origin France
Medium: Pink marble on steel base
Dimensions: 26 × 31 × 25 in., 1200 lb. (66 × 78.7 × 63.5 cm, 544.3 kg)
Base: 8 × 18 × 6 1/2 in. (20.3 × 45.7 × 16.5 cm)
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art