Sculptor Louise Bourgeois dies aged 98

France-born US sculptor Louise Bourgeois died of a heart attack at the age of 98 in Manhattan on Monday, according to The New York Times.

Bourgeois, one of the world's most influential contemporary artists, worked in a variety of media ranging from wood to steel to stone and tended to centre on the human form, though among her most recognisable pieces were giant spider sculptures, some as high as three storeys.

The New York Times said her works "shared a set of repeated themes centred on the human body and its need for nurture and protection in a frightening world”.

The artist said one of her main inspirations was her childhood in France, where she was close to her affectionate mother but was also unsettled by her father's marital infidelities, including with her governess.

Bourgeois moved to New York in 1938 after marrying a US art historian, and her reputation gradually grew, but it was not until the 1980s and 1990s, when she had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and represented the United States at the Venice biennale, that she began to be considered a major influence.

Her 1974 tableau, The Destruction of the Father, has been seen as an interpretation of a childhood fantasy in which a father figure is put on a table where it is dismembered and eaten by other members of the family.