Exhibition dates subject to change.

It is difficult to overstate the impact Hesse and Winsor’s use of unconventional materials had on their peers and subsequent generations of sculptors. Softening the cold, rectilinear forms of Minimalism through laborious processes and organic materials, Eva Hesse’s Laocoön (1966) and Jackie Winsor’s Four Corners (1972) are seminal works of Post-minimalist sculpture.

While the discourse around postwar women sculptors focuses on domesticity and textiles, these two sculptures deploy fiber in the service of robust, muscular forms. Hesse references the writhing Greco-Roman sculpture, the Laocoön Group (2nd century BCE–1st century CE), while Winsor’s 1,500-pound structure is as unmovable as an ancient ruin.

The Allen has often supported the careers of overlooked women artists, acquiring both sculptures at pivotal, early moments in the artists’ careers. Longtime Oberlin College art history professor Ellen Johnson was instrumental in bringing these works to the Allen and, through her scholarship, ensuring that they had a secure place in postwar art history.

Images:

Eva Hesse (American, born in Germany, 1936–1970), Laocoön, 1966. Plastic tubing, rope, wire, papier-mâché, cloth, and paint. Fund for Contemporary Art and gift from the artist and Fischbach Gallery, 1970.32.

Jackie Winsor (American, born in Canada, 1941–2024), Four Corners, 1972. Wood and hemp. Gift of Donald Droll in memory of Eva Hesse, 1973.87.