EVA HESSE | Study for Schema

Droll, Kolbert Gallery, Inc., New York
Collection of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Vancouver Art Gallery; Calgary, The Nickle Arts Museum; New York, Seagram Building; Ontario, London Regional Art Gallery, Drawings by Sculptors: Two Decades of Non-Objective Art in the Seagram Collection, May 1984 - June 1985, p. 35, illustrated

Lucy Lippard, Ed., Eva Hesse, New York 1992, fig. 159, p. 114, illustrated 

This work is in very good condition overall. The sheet is hinged on the reverse at the top edge to the backing board. There is pale time staining to the sheet. The lower edge of the sheet is unevenly cut due to the artist's working method. Upon close inspection there is a very minor soft crease to the sheet at the extreme lower left corner. There is a tiny, less than 1/8 tear to the extreme perimeter on the lower edge towards the right corner, to the center and upper left edge, and to the top edge left of center. There is a pinpoint loss to the sheet at the lower left edge. Framed under glass.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

“Painting and particularly drawing played an integral part in Hesse’s artistic development. Indeed, she first achieved a personal style in her drawings.”

Helen A. Cooper in Eva Hesse: A Retrospective, New Haven 1994, p. 9

Eva Hesse’s Study for Schema is an intimate, unmediated view into the artist’s conceptual process as well as an important historical document, demarcating a benchmark artistic and material development in her career. Drawn with Hesse’s distinct open ended style, Study for Schema lays out plans for groundbreaking sculpture Schema, now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When the sculpture was first shown at Hesse’s important 1968 show, Eva Hesse: Chain Polymers at Fischbach Gallery, New York, it was one of her earliest pieces fully made of latex, which would become a signature, instantly recognizable material in her body of work. Study for Schema memorializes that development, providing insight into Hesse’s creative process through the copious notes which communicate the excitement and importance in her groundbreaking use of the material, while also serving as a powerful aesthetic statement, each line somehow both wavering and sure, allusive yet instructional.