Ruth Aiko Asawa (January 24, 1926 – August 5, 2013) was an American modernist artist known primarily for her abstract looped-wire sculptures inspired by natural and organic forms. In addition to her three-dimensional work, Asawa created an extensive body of works on paper, including abstract and figurative drawings and prints influenced by nature, particularly flowers and plants, and her immediate surroundings.[1]
Born in Norwalk, California in 1926, Asawa was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrants. She grew up on a truck farm. In 1942, her family was separated when they were sent to different Japanese internment camps as a result of isolation policies for Japanese-Americans mandated by the U.S. government during World War II.[1] At Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, Asawa learned drawing from illustrators interned at the camp. In 1943, she was able to leave the camp to attend Milwaukee State Teachers College, where she hoped to become a teacher but was unable to complete her studies because her Japanese ancestry prevented her from obtaining a teaching position in Wisconsin.[1]
In 1946, Asawa joined the avant-garde artistic community at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she studied under the influential German-American Bauhaus painter and color theorist Josef Albers, as well as the American architect and designer Buckminster Fuller. At Black Mountain College, Asawa began making looped-wire sculptures inspired by basket crocheting technique she learned in 1947 during a trip to Mexico.[1] In 1955, she held her first exhibition in New York and by the early 1960s, she had achieved commercial and critical success and became an advocate for public art according to her belief of "art for everyone".[1] She was the driving force behind the creation of the San Francisco School of the Arts, which was renamed the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in 2010.[2]
Her work is featured in collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.[3] Fifteen of Asawa's wire sculptures are on permanent display in the tower of San Francisco's de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, and several of her fountains are located in public places in San Francisco.[4] In 2020, the U.S. Postal Service honored her work by producing a series of ten stamps that commemorate her well-known wire sculptures.[5][6]
^ abcdeYoshimoto, Midori (October 16, 2013). "Asawa, Ruth". Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t2085614. ISBN 9781884446054. Retrieved September 16, 2023.
^Tucker, Jill (February 24, 2010). "S.F. school board votes to send pink out slips" Archived February 4, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. San Francisco Chronicle. sfgate.com. Retrieved October 13, 2017.
^RELEASE: RUTH ASAWA Archived August 23, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Christie's; April 2, 2013.
^Anders, Corrie M (November 2005) "Ruth Asawa's Sculptures on Prominent Display in De Young." Archived June 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Noe Valley Voice. (Retrieved June 21, 2018.)
^Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Pioneering Japanese American Artist Ruth Asawa Honored With Forever Stamps - Newsroom - About.usps.com". about.usps.com. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
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become highly influential in the arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, RuthAsawa, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Max Dehn, Elaine de Kooning...
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comic book artists Ted and Teresa Richards. She attended San Francisco's RuthAsawa School of the Arts, and then took up modeling after graduation. She moved...
Ott-Heinrich Keller, Ruth Moufang, and Wilhelm Magnus; he also mentored mathematician Peter Nemenyi and the artists Dorothea Rockburne and RuthAsawa. Dehn was born...
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Marina Abramovic (1995, 2022-23); Carl Andre (1997), Lubaina Himid (2017), RuthAsawa (2022), and Yoko Ono (1997). Since the renaming of the gallery, notable...
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