Eva Hesse 1965

In 1964 the industrialist Friedrich Arnhard Scheidt invited Eva Hesse (1936–1970) and her husband, Tom Doyle, to a residency in Kettwig an der Ruhr, Germany. The following fifteen months marked a significant transformation in Hesse’s practice. The artist’s studio space was located in an abandoned textile factory that contained machine parts, tools, and materials that served as inspiration for her complex, linear mechanical drawings and paintings. In 1965 Hesse expanded on this theme and began using objects found in the factory and papier‑mâché to produce a series of fourteen vibrantly colored reliefs that venture into three‑dimensional space with such materials as wood, metal, and cord protruding from the picture plane.