When she first exhibited her work, Bourgeois’s idiosyncratic approach to art-making was out of step with the formal issues dominating the art world at that time. But by the 1970s and 1980s, the artist's work was internationally recognized. Bourgeois was renowned for creating unique works, including: monumental spiders, eerie room-sized “Cells,” evocative figures often hanging from wires and a range of fabric works fashioned from her old clothes. The artist also constantly made drawings on paper and regularly returned to printmaking. For Bourgeois, art was both a tool for coping and an exorcism.