Drawings in the Collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Edited by Barry Rosen. Foreword by Helen Hesse Charash, Andria Derstine. Text by Briony Fer, Gioia Timpanelli, Manuela Ammer, Andrea Gyorody, Jörg Daur.
"Oberlin Drawings offers a generous and indelible assortment of works on paper from a visionary woman, gone too soon." –Bookforum
A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2020
This monumental tome contains the entirety of the important German artist’s drawings held in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio. The AMAM was the first museum to purchase a sculpture by Hesse, Laocoon, in 1970. In gratitude for its recognition of Hesse's work, and following the artist's untimely death, her sister Helen Hesse Charash generously donated the artist's notebooks, diaries, sketchbooks, photographs and letters to the museum.
Hesse’s drawings played a crucial role in her work, which in turn gave way to an array of highly innovative techniques and styles that today still defy classification. As she commented in 1970: “I had a great deal of difficulty with painting but never with drawing ... the translation or transference to a large scale and in painting was always tedious.... So I started working in relief and with line.” Hesse’s custom of introducing sculptural materials into drawing and painting continues to influence artmaking today.
Eva Hesse (1936–70) was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century. Her work combined the seriality and reductionism of 1960s minimalism with emotion, sensuousness and physicality. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate, Guggenheim and many others.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Eva Hesse: Oberlin Drawings.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Ursula
Madeleine Taurins
The book features reproductions of a sweeping variety of works on paper, from life studies and fiercely colorful goaches to collage pieces, abstract line drawings and diagrams of unrealized sculptures.
Bookforum
Canada Choate
Oberlin Drawings offers a generous and indelible assortment of works on paper from a visionary woman, gone too soon.
New York Times
Roberta Smith
When Eva Hesse died at 34 in 1970, she left behind an influential body of sculpture as well as a mass of drawings and works on paper whose extent is sumptuously revealed by this monumental volume. It reproduces more than 350 examples, almost all given to the museum over the years by the artist’s sister, Helen Hesse Charash. Ranging from 1952 to 1970, they include art-school figure drawings, adaptations of older artists’ styles and sketches for her canonical late works. Altogether, they indicate how Hesse achieved so much so quickly: She started young and never let up.
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Featured spread is from Eva Hesse: Oberlin Drawings. An extraordinary 2019 title, this 428-page collection of more than 350 drawings in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College is a two-inch-thick brick of a book with creamy, matte paper and exquisite reproductions. "Rather than saying that drawing expresses Hesse's deepest feelings," Briony Fer writes, "maybe we could say that it was a way of articulating her frustration—that is, the shortfall between the wanting and the having, the thwarting and the satisfaction, that is vital to creative life. In this sense the need to draw is—not so simply—the drive to carry on making work. Doing things on paper was not a substitute for doing supposedly more important things like make a painting or a sculpture—but what Hesse did because she was an artist (and not just a doodler)." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11 in. / 428 pgs / 391 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $85 ISBN: 9783906915395 PUBLISHER: Hauser & Wirth Publishers AVAILABLE: 5/21/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ AFR ME
Eva Hesse: Oberlin Drawings Drawings in the Collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers. Edited by Barry Rosen. Foreword by Helen Hesse Charash, Andria Derstine. Text by Briony Fer, Gioia Timpanelli, Manuela Ammer, Andrea Gyorody, Jörg Daur.
"Oberlin Drawings offers a generous and indelible assortment of works on paper from a visionary woman, gone too soon." –Bookforum
A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2020
This monumental tome contains the entirety of the important German artist’s drawings held in the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio. The AMAM was the first museum to purchase a sculpture by Hesse, Laocoon, in 1970. In gratitude for its recognition of Hesse's work, and following the artist's untimely death, her sister Helen Hesse Charash generously donated the artist's notebooks, diaries, sketchbooks, photographs and letters to the museum.
Hesse’s drawings played a crucial role in her work, which in turn gave way to an array of highly innovative techniques and styles that today still defy classification. As she commented in 1970: “I had a great deal of difficulty with painting but never with drawing ... the translation or transference to a large scale and in painting was always tedious.... So I started working in relief and with line.” Hesse’s custom of introducing sculptural materials into drawing and painting continues to influence artmaking today.
Eva Hesse (1936–70) was one of the foremost artists of the 20th century. Her work combined the seriality and reductionism of 1960s minimalism with emotion, sensuousness and physicality. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate, Guggenheim and many others.
