Louise Bourgeois, a French-American sculptor and visual artist, trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before moving to the United States in 1938. Despite initially being rejected by the Surrealist group, she managed to incorporate their aesthetic into her work. Bourgeois experimented with various materials such as wood, plaster, latex, and marble, developing a style rich in metamorphic and often abstract forms.

Her work is deeply personal, exploring themes of intimacy, sexuality, and betrayal, often influenced by the family trauma associated with her father's infidelity. In the 1970s, her engagement with the feminist movement expanded the scope of her work, as evidenced by Fillette (1968) at MoMA, a suspended latex phallus that defies conventions.

Bourgeois is renowned for her sculptures and installations that merge art and psychoanalysis, using her personal history to question power dynamics and gender roles. Her later style blends installations and sculptures, with explicit references to her haunting childhood. Works like the series Extrême Tension (2007) are manifestations of fragmented bodily perceptions and inscribed suffering, reflecting a life dedicated to exploring the depths of human experience.