Ruth Asawa : retrospective /

A landmark survey of the wide-ranging practice of one of the twentieth century's most innovative artists. Best known for her sinuous looped-wire sculptures, Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) used everyday materials to create endlessly innovative works in a variety of media over her more than six-decade-lo...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Bishop, Janet C. (Editor), Manes, Cara (Editor)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: San Francisco : New Haven, Connecticut : San Francisco Museum of Modern Art : In association with Yale University Press, [2025].
Subjects:
Description
Summary:A landmark survey of the wide-ranging practice of one of the twentieth century's most innovative artists. Best known for her sinuous looped-wire sculptures, Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) used everyday materials to create endlessly innovative works in a variety of media over her more than six-decade-long career, from her student days at the experimental Black Mountain College in the 1940s through her mature years in her adopted home city of San Francisco. This extensively illustrated volume explores the astonishing expansiveness of Asawa's work, from the abstract looped-wire sculptures for which she garnered national attention in the 1950s to her nature-inspired tied-wire pieces, clay and bronze casts, paperfolds, paintings, drawings, sketchbooks and prints. The book explores the ways in which her longtime San Francisco home and garden served as the epicenter of her creative practice, and highlights the ethos of collaboration and inclusivity that informed her numerous public sculpture commissions and unwavering dedication to arts advocacy. Essays and other writings consider Asawa and her work within the context of modern abstract sculpture, through the lens of craft and the materiality of wire, and in relation to her Asian American identity and her personal history as a Japanese American who was incarcerated with her family during World War II. Focus texts illuminate the connections between Asawa and key artistic figures such as Josef Albers, Imogen Cunningham, and R. Buckminster Fuller, with whom she maintained enduring relationships.
Item Description:Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title, held at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, April 5-September 2, 2025, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 19, 2025-February 7, 2026, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, March 20-September 13, 2026, Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, October 18, 2026-January 24, 2027.
Physical Description:335 pages : chiefly color illustrations ; 33 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:9780300278859
0300278853