One's Sleep (1)

Cat. No. 981A

One's Sleep (1)

Date:
2003
Illustrated Book:
One's Sleep
Themes
Abstraction, Architecture, Figures, Nature
Techniques
Aquatint, Engraving, Etching
Support:
Handmade Dieu Donné paper
Dimensions:
page (each): 37 x 27" (94 x 68.6 cm); cover: 38 1/2 x 28 5/8 x 2" (97.8 x 72.7 x 5.1 cm)
Signature:
"Louise Bourgeois" lower center sheet, page 42, pencil.
Publisher
Osiris
Printer
Wingate Studio
Printer of Text
Wild Carrot Letterpress
Edition:
12 (see Edition Information)
Edition Information:
Documentation was available from the Louise Bourgeois Studio for 2 bound examples of “One’s Sleep”: numbers 1 and 3. No documentation is available for the other bound or unbound examples, as of 2016 cataloguing.

The colophons found in books 1 and 3 differ with regard to Edition and Publisher.
Book 1:
Edition: “Ten bound books / Two unbound folio sets”
Publisher: “Designed and published by Benjamin Shiff”

Book 3:
Edition: “Nine bound books / Three unbound folio sets”
(Publisher’s notes, not included on the colophon, numbers the books 1-9 and I-III)
Publisher: “Published by Osiris”

The pagination in books 1 and 3 differ in that book 1 includes an additional blank spread before pp. 9-10 (with plates 1 and 2). Otherwise, the plates used and the order in which they appear is consistent in each. (See individual books)

Hand additions to the plates in books 1 and 3 vary considerably.
Impression:
"1/10" lower center p. 42, pencil, artist's hand (artist's numbering refers to bound books as noted on the colophon).
Background:
Ten plates included in this book were initially developed from 1989-1990 in conjunction with Benjamin Shiff, director of Osiris, as a preliminary trial for the book project "the puritan" (see below in Related Works in the Catalogue) although it did not ultimately appear in that book. Bourgeois and Shiff returned to these compositions in 2003, creating impressions with hand additions, and also impressions for inclusion in the book, “One’s Sleep”, which ultimately included 5 more recent compositions as well.
Description:
Illustrated book with 18 plates, including etching, engraving, and aquatint, with watercolor and gouache additions
Inscription:
"one's sleep" center cover, pencil, artist's hand.
State Changes and Additions:
Matrices:
Within "One's Sleep," when 2 plates appear across a single spread, the spread is treated as a diptych and that diptych is considered a new composition for the purposes of this catalogue.

Many plates in "One's Sleep" were also issued as separate editions; they are listed below and are seen in Related Works in the Catalogue.

plates (3 and 4): plate from "Toi et Moi."

plate (5): plate from "Strange Fellows."

plate (6): plate from "Side by Side."

plates (7 and 8): plate from "The Upward Journey."

plate (9): plate from "The Sky’s the Limit."

plate (10): plate from "In the Distance."

plate (11): plate from "Unaware and Aware."

plate (12): plate from "Spring."

plate (13): plate from "The Underground Life of Fear."

plate (14): plate from "The Ladder of Success."

plate (17): plate from "One’s Sleep."
This single impression was editioned with the same title as the series of illustrated books.

plate (18): plate from "Landscape."
Pagination:
43 unnumbered pages, with plates interspersed and figuring in the numbering sequence.
(Pagination from publisher’s notes.)
Housing:
The 9 bound books were bound by Agathetaa Bindery, MA, with a paper cover with blue watercolor hand additions.
© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY

From the illustrated book

Unaware and Aware, plate 11 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Spring and The Underground Life of Fear, plates 12 and 13 of 18 (diptych), from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
The Ladder of Success, plate 14 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Untitled, plates 15 and 16 of 18 (diptych), from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
One's Sleep, plate 17 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Text 20, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Landscape, plate 18 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
The Blue Fear and The Pink Fear, plates 1 and 2 of 18 (diptych), from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Text 5, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Toi et Moi (Sleeping Figure and Swaying), plates 3 and 4 of 18 (diptych), from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Strange Fellows, plate 5 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Side by Side, plate 6 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
The Upward Journey, plates 7 and 8 of 18 (diptych), from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
Text 11, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
The Sky's the Limit, plate 9 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
In the Distance, plate 10 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)

Related Works in the Catalogue

Toi et Moi
The Upward Journey
The Sky's the Limit
One's Sleep
Strange Fellows
Side by Side
The Underground Life of Fear
The Ladder of Success
In the Distance
Spring
Unaware and Aware
Landscape
Publication Excerpts

Louise Bourgeois,

One's Sleep,

2003

Bourgeois's entire printed text for this volume appears on the pages cited below. The text is consistent throughout the documented books, although the page numbers vary slightly.

Cover:
One's Sleep [artist’s hand]

Text 1:
LOUISE BOURGEOIS

Text 2:
one's sleep

Text 3 (with plate 1):
The blue fear.

Text 4 (with plate 2):
The pink fear.

Text 5:
I need sleep.

Text 6 (with plate 3):
The comfort object, always present,

Text 7 (with plate 4):
the color blue,
the child.
the circling of children.

Text 8 (with plate 5):
I need sleep.

Text 9 (with plate 6):
To listen to the breathing, to my stomach,
to my intestines. I want to listen to them,
to expose them, to think about them,
to welcome them, to wait for them,
to take care of them, like a good rested mother.

Text 10 (with plate 7 and 8):
Sleep to reach peace, the restoration of silence and of peace.
The defenses are worthless, they do not exist. Kindliness,
healthy breathing, forgetting and forgiving, to let go.

Text 11:
Leniency and charity are necessary for the arrival of sleep.
I want to give, to exude, to give to give, to exude.

Text 12 (with plate 9):
My sleep is disturbed. The house of fear. Apprehension.
I fear the future, but I am also afraid of the past.
Yes even the past, but also the present.
I am afraid of others, but mostly of myself.

Text 13 (with plate 10):
The fear to waste one's time,
the fear to waste one's luck,
the fear of the past;
nostalgia.

The fear of the present,
the fear to love,
the fear of the future;
apprehension.

Text 14 (with plate 11):
The ransom, the cost, the effect of fear on others.
The fear that does not know itself.
Unaware and aware.

Text 15 (with plate 12 and 13):
The underground life of fear, what it becomes.

Text 16 (with plate 14):
The fear and the sugar, the adrenaline.
To have the energy and persistence to replace fear by trust.

Text 17 (with plate 15):
I'm going to wait until my breathing goes down and gets regularized, to yawn,

Text 18 (with plate 16):
to do one's nails, to comb the hair, to mend, to draw, to write one's journal.

Text 19 (with plate 17):
One's sleep.

Text 20:
To lose one's way,
to lose one's friend,
to lose one's breath.

Text 21:
To love.

Text 22 (with plate 18):
Leave the house of fear, the window is open.