20 June – 14 Sept 2025
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery
For celebrated artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), drawing was like an intimate journal, a practice that began when she was young, and remained a constant element of her artistic life.
To coincide with the exhibition Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, this focused display will present a group of drawings by Bourgeois from the 1960s, all on loan from The Easton Foundation of New York. These oneiric works illustrate the central role of drawing in her work and the way it intertwined with her sculptural practice during those years.
Abstract shapes, predominantly round and colourful, occupy small and large sheets of paper. ‘Drawings are thought feathers’ Bourgeois said, ‘ideas that I seize in mid-flight and put down on paper’. Drawn in rhythmic movements, these drawings reflect the spontaneity of Bourgeois’s mark-making and reveal an artist who was less concerned with a finished product, but rather with the immediacy of the experience. For Bourgeois, the abstract drawings “come from a deep need to achieve peace, rest, and sleep. They… relate to unconscious memories’.
Included with Gallery Entry ticket.
Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams will be on display in the Denise Coates Exhibitions Gallery on the third floor from 20 June – 14 Sept 2025.
Tickets go on sale in 2025. Sign up to The Courtauld Gallery newsletter to hear our latest announcements and more. Join as a Friend for priority booking and unlimited entry.
Join the art movement
Get free unlimited entry to The Courtauld Gallery and exhibitions, priority booking to selected events, advance notice of art history short courses, exclusive events, discounts and more.
Become a Friend
