The Easton Foundation was established by Louise Bourgeois in the 1980s as a non-profit and charitable organization. Upon her death in 2010, at the age of 98, Bourgeois bequeathed her home and an adjacent townhouse to become the Foundation’s center, and donated a substantial collection of her art to its holdings.

The Easton Foundation is now dedicated to preserving Bourgeois’s legacy. Serving to promote the scholarship and awareness of Bourgeois’s life and art, the Foundation aims to cultivate new interpretations of her work while providing a deeper understanding of her artistic process and creative milieu. As part of this mission, the Foundation has established the Louise Bourgeois Archive, a study center and residency for curators and scholars, as well as a sculpture garden and a small exhibition space presenting works from the collection. The Foundation is also undertaking the ongoing conservation of Bourgeois’s distinctive home and studio, in which she lived and worked for almost 50 years. 

HOME:
Bourgeois and her husband, the art historian Robert Goldwater, purchased their townhouse on West 20th Street in 1962. Upon Goldwater’s death in 1973, Bourgeois rearranged the domestic spaces of the home and expanded her studio practice from the basement to the parlor floor, transforming the whole house into a work of art. It is here that Bourgeois realized many of her sculptures, drawings, gouache paintings, and prints, as well as conceived of large-scale projects and commissions before their actualization in foundries or at her more industrial Brooklyn studio. Bourgeois also held her renowned Sunday salons in the space, during which artists, writers and curators would share their work for discussion. Please see our FAQ page for further information on how to visit.

ARCHIVE:
The Louise Bourgeois Archive is comprised of more than a century’s worth of personal writings, letters, family photographs, exhibition announcements, and diaries. These papers offers unique insight to Bourgeois’s various artistic motivations and the ways in which they were manifested in her art. Her interest in psychoanalysis, experimentation with material and form, and physical and emotional response to her environment were extensively detailed. Letters and documents regarding exhibitions, galleries, and the making and showing of artworks trace the trajectory of Bourgeois’s exceptional career. The cataloguing of these papers is current and ongoing. The Archive is available to scholars and researchers by appointment only, and on a case-by-case basis, and does not include access to Bourgeois's home. Please see our FAQ page for further information on how to visit.