Eva Hesse

New York University Press, 1976-12-01. hardcover. Good/Acceptable. 11x7x1. 1976 New York University Press (New York), 7 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches tall black cloth hardcover in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, gilt lettering to spine, illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs and reproductions of artwork, 249 pp. Slight staining, rubbing and edgewear to covers, with a half inch chip to the cloth cover of the top of the spine. Prior owner name and address to top margin of blank front free-endpaper. Slight creasing to the lower edges of a number of pages. Otherwise, a clean and unmarked copy in an only slightly edgeworn dust jacket which has a chip to the upper spine corresponding to the abrasion on the same part of the cloth cover of the upper spine. Note that this is a heavy and oversized book, so additional postage will be required for international or priority orders ~SP23~ [4.0P] Combines a biography of the American painter-sculptor who died at thirty-four with a critical study of her work, all illustrated by photographers of Hesse's controversial and influential works. As Lippard points out, Hesse's use of obsessive repetition in her works served to increase and exaggerate the absurdity she saw in her life. In many ways, her works were 'psychic models,' as Robert Smithson has said, of 'a very interior person.' In pioneering the use of 'soft' materials, her sculptures betrayed her awareness of the manner in which her experience as a woman altered her art and career. Although she died before feminism affected the art world to any great extent, her major works have since become talismans for succeeding generations of women artists. Eva Hesse was designed by Hesse's friends and colleagues Sol LeWitt and Pat Stier; her sculptures, drawings, and paintings are reproduced and discussed; and the text includes numerous quotations from her diaries.