France
* December 25, 1911 Paris
† May 31, 2010 New York
Louise Bourgeois became world-famous above all for her spiders. The largest of them, which she named “Maman” in memory of her mother, is more than nine meters high and carries a bag containing 26 marble eggs. The original from 1999, now owned by Tate Modern in London, is cast in stainless steel; six further copies were made in bronze and are permanently located in Kansas City, Bilbao, Tokyo, Ottawa, Bentonville and Doha. The artworks are among the largest sculptures in the world.
In addition to the Mamans, Louise Bourgeois created countless spiders, often as an entire series. The sculptures vary in shape and size, but remain unmistakably the work of the French artist. “Spider” from 1996 (three years before Maman) became the most expensive sculpture of a woman of all time and broke its own multiple record with a sales price of 32.8 million US dollars in 2023.
