![Portrait of Eva Hesse](https://oiss.yale.edu/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/eva_hesse.jpg?itok=Q_re7fc7&c=69e5929b28cbe37dcd299fd2eca5daeb)
Eva Hesse’s family fled Nazi Germany when she was a toddler and moved to the U.S. a year later. After attending many area schools in New York for Art, including Cooper Union, Hesse transferred to Yale and received her B.A. in 1959. At Yale, she was a student of the famous Josef Albers and was influenced by Abstract Expressionism.
While her earlier work was in abstract drawings and paintings, Hesse is well known for her creative uses of materials and her ability to usher in and compete in a male-dominated Postminimal art movement in the 1960’s. Hesse was a pioneer in the use of unconventional materials such as latex, plastic and fiberglass in her sculptures but they also posed a distinct disadvantage in their preservation. Her collections can be viewed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum Wiesbaden in Germany, and Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. She suffered an untimely death at the age of 34 from a brain tumor. The 2016 documentary Eva Hesse captured both the painful aspects of her life as well as her tremendous impact on the art world.