Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2010

The artist Louise Bourgeois has died, aged 98. The French-born artist, who moved to America in 1938, and whose sculptures, drawings and prints were a major inspiration for generations of younger artists, passed away at the Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, on Monday 31 May.

Bourgeois’ friend, the critic Stuart Morgan, wrote of her in frieze: ‘If no description exists for what Bourgeois is doing now and if her thoughts seem to be moving in all directions at once, then she is to be applauded. For how many artists have done that? And how many go back and revise previous work: not doing the same thing, but trying to understand it differently: more deeply from year to year. Of course, this is what an oeuvre means. Not a wealth of work – although Bourgeois has made plenty – but the idea of it growing with the artist herself, day by day.’

An exhibition featuring previously unseen works – the last exhibition in which she was actively involved – will open on 4 June at The Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova