Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, Portrait of the Artist's Mother

James McNeill Whistler, 1871, Realism, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, FranceWhistler

Maman

Louise Bourgeois, 1999, bronze, stainless steel, marble: National Gallery of Canada

Maman (1999) is a bronze, stainless steel, and marble sculpture by the artist Louise Bourgeois. The sculpture, which depicts a spider, is among the world's largest, measuring over 30 ft high and over 33 ft wide (927 x 891 x 1024 cm).[1] It includes a sac containing 32 marble eggs and its abdomen and thorax are made of ribbed bronze.

The title is the familiar French word for Mother (akin to Mummy). The sculpture was created in 1999 by Bourgeois as a part of her inaugural commission of The Unilever Series (2000), in the Turbine Hall at London's Tate Modern. This original was created in steel, with an edition of six subsequent castings in bronze.

The sculpture picks up the theme of the arachnid that Bourgeois had first contemplated in a small ink and charcoal drawing in 1947, continuing with her 1996 sculpture Spider.

It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother, with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection. Her mother, Josephine, was a woman who repaired tapestries in her father's textile restoration workshop in Paris.[3] When Bourgeois was twenty-one, she lost her mother to an unknown illness. A few days after her mother's passing, in front of her father (who did not seem to take his daughter's despair seriously), Louise threw herself into the Bièvre River; he swam to her rescue.

“The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.” — Louise Bourgeois[4]

Bust of an Old Woman, Rembrandt`s Mother

Rembrandt, 1628

The Artist's Mother

Pierre-Auguste Renoir
1860

Mother

Joaquín Sorolla
1895

The Painter's Mother II

Lucian Freud, 1972

Portrait of the Artist's Mother (Porträt der Mutter des Künstlers)

Albrecht Durer, 1514, Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Portrait of the Artist's Mother, Dofia Felipa Dome Domenech De, Dali

Salvador Dali, 1920

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Rembrandt, 1629 - 1631, Royal Collection (Buckingham Palace), London, UK

The Artist's Mother

Paul Cezanne, 1867

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Juan Gris, 1912

Portrait of artist's mother

Giorgio de Chirico, 1911

The Artist's Mother

Arshile Gorky, c.1936, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, US

The Artist's Mother

Georges Seurat, 1882-1883

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Vincent van Gogh, 1888; Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, Netherlands

Portrait of artist's mother

Rembrandt, 1639

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Salvador Dali, 1920

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Camille Pissarro, 1888

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Mary Cassatt, 1889-1890

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Pablo Picasso, 1896

Artist's mother

Pablo Picasso, 1896

The Artist's Mother, Sleeping

Egon Schiele, 1911, Albertina, Vienna, Austria

Elizabeth Griffiths Smith Hopper, The Artist's Mother

Edward Hopper, 1915-1916

The artist's mother, the Countess Adèle de Toulouse Lautrec at breakfast

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1881-1883, Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, France

Portrait of the Artist`s Mother

Guido Reni, c.1632

Portrait of the Artist's Mother

Franz Marc, 1902

Dead Mother

Egon Schiele, 1910, Czech Republic

Artist's Mother

Fedir Krychevsky, 1904

Portrait of Mother of Rembrandt

Rembrandt, c.1630, Baroque

Rembrandt`s Mother, Seated, Looking to the Right

Rembrandt, 1631, Baroque

The Prophetess Anna (Rembrandt`s Mother)

Rembrandt, 1631, Baroque

Maman

Bildnis einer Alten Frau / Portrait of an Old Woman (Leibl's Mother)

Wilhelm LEIBL, 1874, Gift of George Wallace, McMaster Museum of Art

Dimensions: Plate: 21 x 16 cm (8 1/4 x 6 5/16 in.) Support: 37.1 x 28.5 cm (14 5/8 x 11 1/4 in.)

Medium: Etching on Arches paper

Amanta Scott

The Artist’s Mother