Louise Bourgeois The Song of the Blacks and the Blues

Property from the Collection of William T. Georgis and Richard D. Marshall
Louise Bourgeois
1911 - 2010
The Song of the Blacks and the Blues (MoMA 649/II variant)

signed in red ball-point pen on the verso, dated 1995+ and inscribed Lithography and First Proof (not monotyped, not retouched)
lithograph printed in colors with woodcut and hand-coloring on BFK Rives wove paper
sheet: 21⅝ by 95⅜ in. 550 by 2424 mm.
Executed in 1995-96; this impression is a heretofore unrecorded trial proof aside from the five recorded by MoMA, co-published by SOLO Impression and Parasol Press, Ltd.

Condition Report:
The full sheet, in good condition apart from a few creases and the sheet edges curling up slightly.

Catalogue Note:
The Museum of Modern Art’s catalogue raisonné of Louise Bourgeois’s prints cites five known variant impressions of state II of II, before the published edition printed with the blue background. The present lot is a previously unrecorded, early trial proof of the second state that was gifted to Richard Marshall by the artist. Of the five known variants, it is most similar to MoMA’s proof number 3, which is in the museum’s collection and was also a gift of Louise Bourgeois.

Provenance:
The artist

Acquired as gift from the above by the present owner