Knife Woman: the Life of Louise Bourgeois

"Reading this book feels like stepping into artist Louise Bourgeois ’s in/famous art salon. In fact the experience goes beyond that, like an invitation to visit the weave of her memories — the tapestry workshop of her childhood, the domestic labour of women mending torn rugs, the repetitive craft of repair. The author shows how these early experiences of weaving and restoration haunted Bourgeois’s mind and later surfaced in her sculptures and large-scale installations. It is a book about continuity — between childhood trauma and adult expression, between memory and material. The research is impeccable, rich with illustration, diaries, letters, personal photographs and previously unpublished archives. For anyone interested in this singular figure in twentieth century art, and how lived experience becomes aesthetic conviction, Knife-Woman is essential reading."