Ode à La Bièvre by Louise Bourgeois

2007. Edition of 1800.

 Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris in 1911. In 1919, her
family moved to the Parisian suburb of Antony where the Bièvre
River "cut across the garden in a straight line". The river was key to
their relocation as it was imperative to the family's business of
tapestry restoration for the washing of the tapestries. In 2002,
Bourgeois would distill her emotions and memories of the river and
the garden in an important unique fabric book entitled ODE À LA
BIÈVRE. In the book she reminisces through images and text, "With
the soil from that river we planted geraniums, masses of peonies,
and beds of asparagus ...and honeysuckle that smelled so sweet in
the rain." Using her own garments as raw material to make sewn
fabric collages, she evoked feelings and memories through lines,
shapes and colors. Years later, Bourgeois was to go back to the
house with her own family only to find the river to no longer exist,
"only the trees that my father had planted along its edge remained as
a witness". This 2007 book faithfully reproduces that original fabric
work.