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1960–1965

Early work: abstract drawings and paintings

Hesse’s early work (1960–1965) consists mainly of abstract drawings and paintings. She made the drawings as a separate body of work and did not regard them as drafts for her sculptures; in the early 1960s she was influenced by Marcel Duchamp.

1960s

Befriends LeWitt, Judd and Kusama

Back in New York after Yale, she grows close to the young minimalist artists Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd and Yayoi Kusama. Her friendship with LeWitt lasts to the end of her life; they wrote to each other often.

1964–1965

A year in Germany: an abandoned mill in Kettwig

So that Doyle can take up a residency from the German industrialist and collector Friedrich Arnhard Scheidt (a move Eva did not welcome), the couple live and work for about a year in an abandoned textile mill in Kettwig near Essen. The angular forms of the disused machines and tools inspire her mechanical drawings, and the year becomes a turning point: from then on sculpture is the main focus of her work.

1965

Returns to New York and takes up new materials

After the year in Germany she returns to New York in 1965, devotes herself to sculpture and begins experimenting with the unconventional materials that become her signature: latex, fiberglass and plastic.

1965

LeWitt tells her to stop thinking and just do

In 1965 Sol LeWitt, with whom she corresponded often, famously urges a doubting Eva to stop thinking and simply do the work.

1966

Divorce from Tom Doyle

Her marriage to Tom Doyle, which had begun to fall apart already in Germany, ends in divorce.