Knife-Woman

Marie-Laure Bernadac is a former curator at the Louvre, Musée Picasso, Centre Pompidou, and the CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux and a leading specialist on Louise Bourgeois. Lauren Elkin is an award-winning writer and translator. Her books include Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art.

“The mischievous French artist comes alive in this deeply personal biography.”—Chloë Ashby, Times (UK)“Fullest account to date of the life of one of the most influential artists of the last century. But it also delivers, as the best biographies do, a coherent and consistently stimulating interpretation of the wellsprings of Bourgeois’s art.”—Christoph Irmscher, Art Newspaper“Writing the first comprehensive biography of a major artist could prove daunting, but taking on Bourgeois’s long life in art might be called heroic. . . . Vivid and thorough, . . . Bernadac’s book is an impressive undertaking.”—Bridget Quinn, Hyperallergic“The book charts Bourgeois’s performances, her fierce independence, and the visceral, often disconcerting work that fused dreams, memory, anatomy, and autobiography over her seven-decade career. Throughout, Bourgeois’s singular voice slices through.”—Artnet, “8 Standout Art Books to Gift (or Keep) This Season”“An insightful study of [Bourgeois’] work.”—ApolloListed by Hyperallergic in “12 Art Books to Read This Fall”A Times (UK) “Shopping Pick,” Gabriella Bennett“Bourgeois’s life was inseparable from her art and this too was constantly revised. One of the triumphs of Bernadac’s book is her sangfroid in dealing with this slipperiness . . . She was deeply untrustworthy, impossible to believe. Yet truth, as Bernadac notes, wasn’t the point. Louise Bourgeois had to be experienced.”—Charles Darwent, Literary ReviewFinalist for the French-American Translation Prize, sponsored by the French-American Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation“In Knife-Woman, Louise Bourgeois is revealed as a complex, self-analyzing, and profound artist—embedded and respected in both the New York and Paris art worlds, impassioned by materials, and worldly and introspective. Her penchant for living for work was periodically arrested by the agony of depression, yet this never stopped the flow of wit, insight, and creative energy.”—Griselda Pollock, author of After-Affects/After-Images: Trauma and Aesthetic Transformation in the Virtual Feminist Museum“Bernadac’s remarkable biography has made the telling of Louis Bourgeois’s life into a new art. Bernadac’s alive present tense and thoughtful recollections coexist in the text—simultaneously one lives with Louise and learns all there is to know about her.”—Juliet Mitchell, University of Cambridge“Marie-Laure Bernadac’s brilliant biography provides a treasure trove of fascinating insights into an extraordinary artist's life and introduces a new generation of artists and scholars to her work.”—Jo Applin, author of Eccentric Objects: Rethinking Sculpture in 1960s America (Yale, 2012)