Name: Ruth Asawa Born: 1926 in California; Died: 2013 Art Movement: Modern Art Main Medium: Sculpture Artist Quote: “My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.” |
Achievements: Vogue magazine featured her artwork in 1952 alongside fashion models, who posed in front of the sculptures. In 2019, a 1955 sculpture by Asawa sold for $4.1 million at Christie's auction house. In 2020, Asawa was honored with a collection of US Postage Stamps. | About the Artist: In December 1941, when Asawa was 15 years old, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to declare war on Japan. While her family and other Japanese Americans were detained at Santa Anita, California, in 1942, Asawa was first met professional artists, three Japanese American artist who had worked for Disney on Snow White and Pinnochio. Following her release from an internment camp in Arkansas, eighteen months later, she enrolled in 1943 in Milwaukee State Teachers College. Asawa wanted to be an art teacher but was told that no one would hire her because of her race. Unable to receive her degree due to continued hostility against Japanese Americans, Asawa left Milwaukee in 1946 to study at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. A 1955 review of two separate exhibitions by Asawa and artist Isamu Noguchi in Time magazine referred to Noguchi as a “leading U.S. sculptor” and Asawa as “a housewife.” What set her work apart from others making sculpture then was their lightness and transparency, as well as their movement since they were suspended from the ceiling. In addition to her wire sculptures, Asawa is well known for her public commissions, particularly in San Francisco and the wider Bay Area. These include the much beloved Andrea fountain in Ghirardelli Square (1966-1968) and the San Francisco Fountain outside the Grand Hyatt Union Square (1970-1973). Only much later in Asawa’s life, when she was in her 60s, did she confront her experience in the camps with a 1994 commissioned bronze bas-relief memorial for the city of San Jose. |
Sources:
https://ruthasawa.com/
https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/ruth-asawa
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/t-magazine/ruth-asawa.html
https://ruthasawa.com/
https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/ruth-asawa
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/t-magazine/ruth-asawa.html