Subtle even when bold: the methodology of Eva Hesse’s early prints

Although Eva Hesse (1936–70) is renowned for her radical use of unconventional materials in the 1960s, her early experiments in printmaking remain largely overlooked. Between 1955 and 1958, while studying at the Art Students League of New York, Cooper Union, New York, and the Yale School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, she made lithographs, etchings and woodcuts, learning precise printing techniques from Will Barnet, Robert Blackburn and Gabor Peterdi. These prints bring structure into tension with fluidity and control with spontaneity – qualities that anticipate the unexpected forms of her later, sculptural works. This article examines how printmaking became a guiding principle in Hesse’s practice, encouraging her to embrace unpredictable outcomes. As she later put it, ‘I’d like now, when I get back to work, not to know what the end is going to be until I get there’.