Happiness
Louise Bourgeois
American, born France. 1911–2010
2009
A small red print by Louise Bourgeois, made with drypoint, engraving, and mezzotint, that uses simplified, breast‑like mounds and a fragile, repeated figure to evoke an intimate, ambiguous feeling implied by the title “Happiness.”
A saturated crimson rectangle floats on a wide white sheet, its velvety mezzotint surface carving smooth, undulating hills that cradle a tiny, echoing human silhouette seeming to emerge from and dissolve into the forms.
Created late in her career, this print distills Bourgeois’s lifelong concern with memory, the body, and emotional ambivalence, showing how minimalist, biomorphic imagery and printmaking’s tactile effects can render interior psychological states visible.
Medium
Drypoint, engraving, and mezzotint
Dimensions
plate: 5 × 6 15/16" (12.7 × 17.6 cm); sheet: 11 15/16 × 11 7/16" (30.4 × 29 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the artist
Accession
1606.2012
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions