Louise Bourgeois

                                                           Femme Volage, 1951, 73 x 18 x 13"
                                                       Wood, sewing tools, needles & bobbins

                                                 One and Others, 1955, 18 x 20 x 16"
                                    Painted & stained wood, Whitney Museum of American Art        

                                                          The Nest, 1994, SFMoMA
                                                          Metal 107" x 158 "x 189"

Louise Bourgeois began as an engraver and turned to sculpture as her career evolved. Early family life, sexuality and the magic of childhood influence her work.  Anthropomorphic symbols of people, often done in organic, painted wood in her early years and larger works of metal in later years, cluster together and speak to each other as family and friends.

Femme Volage (Fickle Woman) 1951 done in wood stands tall, independent & haughty as  a stylized self portrait using sewing tools such needles and bobbins which were tools of her parents as tapestry restorers. It is part of 80 works titled "Personnages" displayed un the 1940s.  Individual pieces of "Personnage" stood in small groups in clusters of conversation.  From Guggenheim.org

One and Others, painted wood represents many figures on one base.  The figures huddle and whisper -  which of us is One and which of us is Other.
  

In the Nest  the mother and children again reference back to the artist’s own family. Spider reminds Bourgeois of her mother who was her best friend and also of herself.  Legs link relationships of space and time, reinforced by the use of lines in the legs and the line of the spiders.  The mother tensely  leads and the children follow in an orderly line of large bodies and skinny legs.
 From SFMoMA.