arts
Updated 18th February 2021
Why Louise Bourgeois made her iconic spider sculptures
Written by Anya Ventura, CNN
Louise Bourgeois s spiders, towering and delicate, are located around the world, from Kansas City to Seoul. The largest sculpture in the series, Maman French for mother stands 30 feet tall at London s Tate Modern; powerfully crouched, its spindly bronze legs taper down to exquisite pinpoints. Underneath the spider s abdomen, a metal egg sac full of white marble orbs hangs ominously over viewers heads. Though Bourgeois didn t begin her spiders until she was in her eighties, they have become her best-known works.
Bourgeois s origin story is recounted often in the numerous monographs, films, and exhibitions devoted to the influential late artist, whose biomorphic, large-scale works rank among the most important of the past century. She was born in 1911 in Paris, where her family operated a business restoring tapestries. As a child, she honed her drawing skil