Eva Hesse: Diaries

An insight into the life and mind of an icon of American art through the diaries of sculptor Eva Hesse.

‘I open my new book. What will you tell for the next year. To bring forth a new chapter of wisdom, hopes, joys fears. I shall be honest with myself; and therewith SUCCEED.’ These lines open Eva Hesse’s 1955 diary and lay out the task of her writing. In between weekly to-do lists and personal musings, Hesse used her diaries as a space to process her experience of the world and to reckon with what it means to be an artist.

In this extensive collection of Hesse’s diaries, recorded from 1955 to 1970, readers are given an intimate glimpse into the mind of one of contemporary sculpture’s most prominent figures. Despite personal tragedies and the difficulties she faced as one of the few female artists in the male-dominated postminimalist movement, Hesse remained intrepid in both her life and craft. Composed of twisted ropes and delicate plastic among other unconventional materials, Hesse’s sculptures defy traditional notions of form; her deeply thoughtful practice as a sculptor and a painter are revealed at length in her writing.