"The subject of pain is the business I am in. To give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering."

"The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses."

Said the grand sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who, at 98, has arrived at last at that remedy for pain which no one ever needed to propose.

At the age of 20, she studied math: "I got peace of mind... only through the study of rules nobody could change."

She moved on to art:

"I have a religious temperament," Ms. Bourgeois, a professed atheist, said about the emotional and spiritual energy that she poured into her work. "I have not been educated to use it. I’m afraid of power. It makes me nervous. In real life, I identify with the victim. That’s why I went into art."