Happiness

Louise Bourgeois

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.

Palette

Art Terms

Drypoint Engraving Print Biomorphic Abstraction Monochrome Contemporary art Mezzotint

Exhibitions

Louise Bourgeois

1982

Women of the Nineties: Fin-de-Siècle Prints

1979

Josephine Joy: Romantic Painter

1942

Extraordinary Women

1977