studied art at various schools in paris, including atelier fernand léger. in 1938, she emigrated to the united states and continued her studies at the art students league in new york.

although she began as an engraver and painter, by the 1940s she turned her attention to sculptural work, for which she is now recognized as a century leader. greatly influenced by the influx of european surrealist artists who immigrated to the united states after world war II, bourgeois's early sculpture was composed of groupings of abstract and organic shapes, often carved from wood. by the 1960s she began to execute her work in rubber, bronze, and stone, and the pieces themselves became larger, more referential to what has become the dominant theme of her work-her childhood: "my childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama." deeply symbolic, her work uses her relationship with her parents and the role sexuality played in her early family life as a vocabulary in which to understand and remake that history. the anthropomorphic shapes her pieces take-the female and male bodies are continually referenced and remade-are charged with sexuality and innocence and the interplay between the two.

louise died in new york on may 31, 2010 at the age of 98 years.