During the 1940s, Louise Bourgeois' art was deeply intertwined with her personal experiences and memories, a trend that would continue throughout her illustrious career. This decade was marked by her initial explorations in a wide range of media and the establishment of motifs that would recur in her later works. The earliest examples of spiders, a motif that would become central in Bourgeois' oeuvre, emerged in her drawings from 1947. These early works reflect her preoccupation with themes of memory, trauma, and familial relationships, elements that she would delve into more profoundly in the later stages of her career​ (The Art Story)​. The 1940s were also a period of transition for Bourgeois, from her initial forays into painting to the sculptural practices for which she would eventually become renowned. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "Louise Bourgeois: Paintings" highlighted this critical phase, showcasing her paintings produced between her arrival in New York in 1938 and her turn to sculpture in the late 1940s. These early paintings reveal Bourgeois' emerging artistic voice and her exploration of visual motifs that would permeate her work for decades. This body of work, created during World War II, established a foundational layer for the themes and practices that would define her career. The exhibition, informed by new archival research, offered insights into a lesser-known chapter of Bourgeois' practice, emphasizing the continuity and evolution of her artistic concerns from her earliest paintings to her later sculptures and installations​ (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)​. Bourgeois' art in the 1940s, thus, can be seen as a critical period of artistic development and experimentation, setting the stage for the profound and impactful work that would follow. Her early engagement with a variety of media and themes during this decade laid the groundwork for her lifelong exploration of the complexity of human emotions and relationships.