The sculptor Eva Hesse (1936-1970) pioneered the use of plastic and other nontraditional materials in order to visualize her essential concern, the absurdity of relationships within contradictory systems.

Although Eva Hesse worked as a sculptor for only five years before her untimely death at 34 in 1970, she made a significant contribution to contemporary art and aesthetics. Born in Hamburg, Germany, on January 11, 1936, she and her sister Helen escaped the Nazi program via a children's train to Amsterdam in 1938. There Eva was rejoined with her parents and together they travelled to England and then to the United States, arriving in New York City on June 23, 1939. Hesse's father kept a record of these events and continued to document Eva's activities as she grew up in New York. Eva kept diaries as well, and her obsession with autobiography can be found in the strongly personal nature of her work.

The trauma of...