A “Spider”, sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, sold for more than 32 million dollars in New York

A gigantic Spider by French sculptor and visual artist Louise Bourgeois sold for $32.5 million on Thursday at an auction at Sotheby’s in New York. Three meters high, this spider is one of the most famous works of the artist who died in 2010, of French origin and naturalized American, who spent a large part of his life in New York.

“Twentieth-Century Masterpiece”

Its sale constituted a “really special time“because it reached an auction record for a work by the artist, but also for a sculpture made by a woman, according to Kelsey Leonard, head of evening auctions at Sotheby’s.”THE Spiders de Bourgeois are undoubtedly a true masterpiece of 20th century art“, she pointed out.

This Spider by Louise Bourgeois was previously kept by the Fundaçao Itau in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2022, another Spider by the artist had been sold for 40 million dollars at the Art Basel fair in Switzerland.

symbolic works

Louise Bourgeois explored in her work the traumas of her childhood, producing a work with a very strong emotional power, even provocative. She notably produced a series of giant spiders made of steel and presented as symbols of her mother.

Other of these Spiders have been exhibited in renowned museums, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.