The Ladder of Success, plate 14 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)

Cat. No. 1021 in 981A

The Ladder of Success, plate 14 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)

State/Variant:
Only state
Date:
2003
Illustrated Book:
One's Sleep (1)
Themes
Objects
Techniques
Aquatint, Etching, Photogravure
Support:
Handmade Dieu Donné paper
Dimensions:
plate (overall): 29 7/16 × 11 5/8" (74.8 × 29.6 cm); page (each): 38 1/2 × 28 5/8" (97.8 × 72.7 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); plus an edition of 3 with hand additions
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.

In the edition of 3 individual impressions with hand additions, each is designated by the artist as a "study." (Usually in this catalogue, the term “study” describes photocopies and tracings that were used in the process of developing a composition.)
Impression:
"1/10" lower center p. 42, pencil, artist's hand (artist's numbering refers to bound books as noted on the colophon).
Background:
The plate used for this composition was initially developed in 1989 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 the composition in 2003, creating impressions with hand additions, and also impressions for inclusion in the book, “One’s Sleep".
Curatorial Remarks:
The plate dimensions could not be documented because this impression is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person. The plate dimensions are from the impressions in MoMA’s Collection. The sheet dimensions were provided by the Louise Bourgeois Studio.
Description:
Soft ground etching, aquatint, and photogravure, with hand additions
State Changes and Additions:
Matrices:
Two plates were used to create this composition. Neither plate contains ladder imagery, which was added entirely in hand additions. According to the publisher, the bottom plate is a photogravure of the top plate.

Prior to the development of this composition, the upper plate was used without the lower plate, and in combination with other plates, as part of a separate untitled composition. See Related Works in the Catalogue.
Pagination:
Pages 31 and 32 of 43.
© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY

The Ladder of Success

2002-2003

States
The Ladder of Success
The Ladder of Success
The Ladder of Success
The Ladder of Success, plate 14 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (1)
The Ladder of Success, plate 14 of 18, from the illustrated book, One's Sleep (3)

Illustrated Book

2003

One's Sleep

Related Works in the Catalogue

Untitled
The Ladders
the puritan
Plate 8 of 9, from the illustrated book He Disappeared into Complete Silence, first edition (Example 1)

Related Works in Other Mediums

The Ladder of Success
Ladder
Ladder
The Ladders
Untitled
Untitled
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.