Louise Bourgeois: The Insomnia Drawings

Insomnia was a lifelong companion of Louise Bourgeois’s nights. Between November 1994 and June 1995, she committed to paper the thoughts, memories, and images that surfaced during these sleepless hours. The resultant 220 drawings represent the quintessence of the impulses, sources, and motifs that inspired Bourgeois’s work. Originally published in 2001 by DAROS and Scalo, the two-volume set of The Insomnia Drawings is newly available courtesy of The Easton Foundation and Hauser & Wirth Publishers.

In Volume I, both sides of each drawing are faithfully reproduced at a 95% scale; Bourgeois composed mostly visual imagery on the drawings’ fronts, and inscribed the backs with poetic writings, aphorisms, and various notes related to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Volume II features essays by Marie-Laure Bernadac and Elisabeth Bronfen, alongside a chronology and checklist of works, including full transcriptions of Bourgeois’s writings, which were written in French and English. At once beautiful and disquieting, humorous and passionate, The Insomnia Drawings are a unique mirror of an extraordinary artist’s life and work.