‘Untitled’ (1953) is composed of stacked wood elements, painted black and threaded on a central pole. The sculpture is from one of Louise Bourgeois’s most renowned series, the Personages, which she created between the late 1940s and early 1950s. This seminal group of unique wood sculptures, which were later cast in bronze editions, heralded a new chapter of unprecedented artistic expression within Bourgeois’s oeuvre. Considered to be her first mature sculptural works, the Personages express Bourgeois’s sense of psychological loss and guilt in the wake of the Second World War, which began soon after she moved from Paris to New York. The celebrated sculptures have often been understood as ‘surrogates’ for the family and friends Bourgeois left behind. Other examples of wood Personages can be found in some of the most renowned collections around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, as well as the Museum of Modern Art, New York.