German-born American sculptor Eva Hesse is one of the most celebrated sculptors of the 1960s and 70s. Hesse worked in unusual materials, like latex and fiberglass, to create sensuous forms that are seen as emblematic of the "post Minimalist" period. Her gender, biography (she was a German Jew who escaped the Holocaust) and the crippling illness that she suffered in her prime (she died of a brain tumor at age 34) are often tied up in the readings of her work as feminist, corporeal, and tragic. Her favorite materials, latex and fiberglass, have not aged well, but their fragility did not seem to … (read more)

German-born American sculptor Eva Hesse is one of the most celebrated sculptors of the 1960s and 70s. Hesse worked in unusual materials, like latex and fiberglass, to create sensuous forms that are seen as emblematic of the "post Minimalist" period. Her gender, biography (she was a German Jew who escaped the Holocaust) and the crippling illness that she suffered in her prime (she died of a brain tumor at age 34) are often tied up in the readings of her work as feminist, corporeal, and tragic. Her favorite materials, latex and fiberglass, have not aged well, but their fragility did not seem to bother Hesse at the time. Most recently, Hesse's legacy was honored with a retrospective in 2002 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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