Maman

Louise Bourgeois created this Maman in 1999 when she was 88 years old. The monumental bronze spider stands over 9 meters tall, its eight legs spanning a protective space beneath its body, which carries a sac of marble eggs. The title means "Mom" in French, and Bourgeois conceived the work as a tribute to her mother, a tapestry restorer who died when the artist was 21.

Bourgeois associated spiders with her mother's industriousness, patience, and skill with thread. "She was my best friend," Bourgeois said. "Like a spider, my mother was a weaver." The sculpture transforms childhood memory into towering presence, simultaneously nurturing and threatening. The spider protects her eggs as Bourgeois's mother protected her children.

Multiple authorized casts exist worldwide. Permanent installations stand at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Tate Modern in London, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, among others. Maman has become one of the most photographed sculptures of the past 25 years, its unlikely subject transformed into an icon of maternal devotion.