Youth

1929–1939 · Workplace

Paris

1930s

Léger tells her she is a sculptor, not a painter

Bourgeois kept studying art in classes that needed translators for English-speaking students, since translators paid no tuition. In one such class Fernand Léger saw her work and told her she was a sculptor, not a painter.

1938–1939

Moves to New York with her husband

With her husband, who taught at New York University, Bourgeois moved to the United States and settled in New York City. There she continued her education at the Art Students League under Vaclav Vytlacil while also producing sculptures and prints.

1938–2010 · Workplace

New York City

1940s

A turn to sculpture under the influence of the Surrealists

In the 1940s Bourgeois concentrated on sculpture, and she was strongly influenced by the influx of European Surrealist artists who emigrated to the United States after the Second World War. At first her sculptures consisted of groups of abstract, organic forms, often carved from wood.

1945

First solo exhibition

Bourgeois’s first solo show took place in 1945, but despite it she received very little attention from the art world.