The greatest works gathered in the exhibition that this publication accompanies testify to the singular and hybrid nature of the vast legacy of Louise Bourgeois (Paris, 1911–2010, New York) where the fictional and the formal, the corporeal and the abstract, personal experiences and codes of 20th century art intersect.

Sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, textiles, installations and writings constitute an artistic practice that does not even present itself as "an exorcism" of torment fueled by childhood memories, it is confused with a narcísic exercise.

The seminal essay by art historian Briony Fer on the Freudian and Proustian dimension of Bourgeois's art and the publication of extracts from her diaries, annotated by Philip Larratt-Smith, will make known to the public Portuguese this artist who was also a prolific writer.

Louise Bourgeois, was one of the most emblematic artists in the history of art for the greater part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

The artist focused mainly on sculpture, creating biomorphic forms and the early use of unconventional materials that allude to a tension between essentially male and female forms.

This recurrent interrogation of the male/female dialectic aligns Bourgeois with the feminist movement.