Eva Hesse was a wonderful sculptor best known for her use of unusual for the art world materials. She was very modern in materials using rubber, cheesecloth, fiberglass, latex, and plastic among other items. Eva Hesse was born to Jewish parents who were living in Hamburg, Germany. The couple realized their safety would soon be compromised and relocated to the Netherlands, followed by England, and then finally New York City.
Below we visit the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art and listen to a curator talk about the varied materials Eva Hesse employed.
In this clip we visit a show in Scotland that features both large and small experimental sculpture works by Eva Hesse.
She was quite productive over her career and may be classified as both abstract and a female figurative artist.
For her artistic education Eva Hesse attended Pratt Institute for one year, then three years at Cooper Union School in New York and finally Yale University where she earned a bachelors degree and mentored under Josef Albers. and also took classes at the Art Students League of New York City. Albers was renown for his use of basic rectangular or square shapes augmented with flat bright color. Below a great example of Albers’ style.
Other influences were Jean DuBuffet and Joseph Beuys.
Hesse had a tough life. Her parents divorced in 1945 and her mother committed suicide in 1946. At the age of 34 years old she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away in 1970 at 34 years of age.
After her passing the Guggenheim held a retrospective of the artist’s career, it was a first for a woman artist.
price range information: Artwork ranges from $50,000 for an original watercolor or gouache to $4.5 million for an original oil painting titled “Iterate.”
Another montage of works by Hesse. Eva Hesse is the woman that appears in the first image on this clip.
Sad to see Eva passed away at such a young age. She was a great modernist and at a time when artists like Lucio Fontana are setting new auction records , look for more works of Hesse to be on the market soon.
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