The Hamburg-born Eva Hesse (1936–70) was possessed of a lithe hand and a determined work ethic: a page from a German schedule planner is covered with tiny sketches of flaccid shapes hanging from central points; four ruled yellow notebook sheets are filled with pencil drawings of suspended totems, flared like bones where they abut one another. These quick studies reveal a restless artist caught up in the rigor of her adopted land's minimal and "process art" movements, to which she brought humor (no such visual detumescence was allowed by those macho abstract expressionists of the '50s) and warmth (many drawings contain lively, colorful, biomorphic forms). In a 1960 ink drawing, lines fall, gather, twist, and trail downward like a flowing veil; in others, geometric shapes are softened by gradations of light. This superb installation of rough 'n' ready studies reveals Hesse's thought processes and confirms that, despite her premature death from brain cancer, her work has given generations of artists fecund ground from... More >>>