Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa (born January 24, 1926 in Norwalk , California , † August 5, 2013 in San Francisco ) was an American sculptor . In San Francisco she was known as the "Fountain Lady". Her work is exhibited in well-known art collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney in New York . She was a driving force behind the creation of the San Francisco School of the Arts , renamed Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in her honor in 2010 .

Life

Ruth Aiko Asawa was born in Norwalk as one of seven children. Her father ran a nursery there until the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II . Her father was taken to a detention center in New Mexico. She, her mother, and her five siblings were taken to the collection point at Santa Anita Racecourse for five months , after which they were taken to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas . They didn't see their father again until six years later.

After graduating from high school, she attended Milwaukee State Teachers College with the goal of becoming an art teacher. Since she was unable to get the job she needed to complete the practical time required to graduate, she left college without a degree. She was awarded this degree in 1998. After the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee offered her an honorary doctorate, she turned it down and instead asked to graduate as an art teacher.

From 1946 to 1949 she studied at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers . It was there that Asawa learned to use everyday materials from Albers and began experimenting with wire and a variety of techniques.

Asawa married the architect Albert Lanier in July 1949. The couple had six children: Xavier (1950), Aiko (1950), Hudson (1952), Adam (1956), Addie (1958) and Paul (1959).

Asawa died on August 5, 2013 at the age of 87 at her San Francisco home.

plant

In the 1950s, Asawa experimented with wire sculptures that were woven from wire, which then appeared like a three-dimensional drawing due to their abstract shapes. She learned the basic technique required for this from the villagers there during a stay in Toluca, Mexico. They used the technique to make baskets out of galvanized wire.

“I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It's still transparent. I realized that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere. "

“It interested me because the economy of a line creates something in space, encloses it without blocking it. It's still transparent. I realized that if I wanted to, I could only create these interlocking and interwoven shapes with a line because a line can go anywhere. "

- Ruth Asawa

Asawa's wire sculptures brought her notoriety in the 1950s, when her work was exhibited several times at the Whitney Biennial Annual Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the São Paulo Biennale .

In 1962, Asawa began experimenting with bound wire sculptures. She created images from nature, geometric and abstract shapes.

The curator of the Young Museum in San Francisco Daniel Cornell said of Ruth Asawa:

“Ruth was ahead of her time in understanding how sculptures could function to define and interpret space. This aspect of her work anticipates much of the installation work that has come to dominate contemporary art. "

“Ruth was way ahead of her time in understanding how sculpture can work and how to define space. This aspect of her work includes much of the artistic installations that dominate contemporary art. "

- Daniell Cornell

Detail of the fountain in Union Square

Asawa created her first representative work in 1968, a mermaid fountain in Ghirardelli Square in Fisherman's Wharf on the waterfront in San Francisco. For this fountain she mobilized 200 school children, who modeled hundreds of impressions from San Francisco, which were then cast in iron. Over time she designed more fountains and became known in San Francisco as the "Fountain Lady".

Public service and cultural education

Asawa was passionate about teaching art as a transformative and empowering experience, especially for children. In 1969, she was appointed a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission and began lobbying politicians and foundations to create arts programs that would benefit young children and San Francisco citizens alike. Ruth Asawa co-founded the Alvarado Art Workshop for schoolchildren in 1968. In the early 1970s, this became the model for the Art Commissions or Neighborhood Art Program , funded by the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) of 1973 .

This became a nationally replicated program that employed artists from all disciplines to do public work for the city. This program was followed in 1982 by the construction of a public art college. The school was renamed the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in her honor in 2010 . Asawa continued her service with the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976, and from 1989 to 1997 she was the curator of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco .

Works (selection)

Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco

Bronze in honor of Makoto Hagiwara, 1974, Japanese Garden, Golden Gate Park

• Andrea , the Mermaid Fountain in Ghirardelli Square (1966)
• San Francisco Fountain of the Grand Hyatt in Union Square (1973)
• Fountain at Buchanan Mall (Nihonmachi) (1976)
• Aurora , origami- inspired fountain on the San Francisco waterfront (1986)
• The Japanese-American Internment Memorial Sculpture in San Jose (1994)

Awards

• 1968: First Dymaxion Award for Artist / Scientist
• 1974: Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects
• 1990: San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Cyril Magnin Award
• 1993: Honor Award from the Women's Caucus for the Arts
• 1995: Asian American Art Foundations Golden Ring Lifetime Achievement Award

Movie

• Snyder, Robert, producer (1978) Ruth Asawa: On Forms and Growth. Pacific Palisades, CA: Masters and Masterworks Production.

Literature on Ruth Asawa

• Abrahamson, Joan, and Sally Woodridge (1973) The Alvarado School Art Community Program. San Francisco: Alvarado School Workshop.
• Bancroft Library (1990): Ruth Asawa, Art, Competence and Citywide Cooperation for San Francisco . In The Arts and the Community Oral History Project. University of California, Berkeley.
• Cook, Mariana (2000) Couples. Chronicle Books.
• Burgard, Timothy Anglin and Cornell, Daniell (Eds., 2020) The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air. Second edition. University of California Press.
• Cunningham, Imogen (1970) Photographs, Imogen Cunningham. University of Washington Press.
• Dobbs, Stephen (1981): Community and Commitment: An Interview with Ruth Asawa. In Art Education vol 34 no 5.
• Faul, Patricia et al. (1995) The New Older Woman. Celestial Arts.
• Harris, Mary Emma (1987) The Arts at Black Mountain College. MIT Press.
• Hopkins, Henry and Mimi Jacobs (1982) 50 West Coast Artists. Chronicle Books.
• Jepson, Andrea and Sharon Litsky (1976) The Alvarado Experience. Alvarado Art Workshop.
• Rountree, Cathleen (1999) On Women Turning 70: Honoring the Voices of Wisdom. Jossey bass.
• Rubinstein, Charlotte Streifer (1992) American Women Sculptors. GK Hall.
• San Francisco Museum of Art . (1973) Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective View . San Francisco Museum of Art.
• Schatz, Howard (1992) Gifted Woman. Pacific Photographic Press.
• Villa, Carlos et al. (1994) Worlds in Collision: Dialogues on Multicultural Art Issues. San Francisco Art Institute.
• Woodridge, Sally (1973) Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain. San Francisco Museum of Art .

Web links

Commons : Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Ruth Asawa, the Subversively 'Domestic' Artist . , In the New York Times by Robert Sullivan
• Ruth Asawa Papers housed at Stanford University Libraries
• Oral history interview with Ruth Asawa and Albert Lanier, 2002 June 21-July 5 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Wakida, Patricia: Ruth Asawa Densho Encyclopedia
• Watts, Patricia: Appreciation: Ruth Asawa (1926-2013)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Publication: Ruth Asawa Christies; 2nd April 2013.
2. ^ Jill Tucker: SF school board votes to send pink out slips. In: San Francisco Chronicle. February 24, 2010, accessed January 31, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Leach Ollman: The Industrious Line. In: Art in America. Retrieved May 1, 2007 . 
4. ↑ James Auer: Artist's return remedies a postwar injustice . In: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , December 18, 1998. NewsBank document ID 0EB82C32E269DCB3. 
5. ^ The College Died, but the Students Really Lived. In: The New York Times. Retrieved March 14, 1992 . 
6. ↑ Ruth Asawa, Crocheted Wire Sculpture ( July 1, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive )
7. ^ ^{A b} Ruth Asawa, an Artist Who Wove Wire, Dies at 87. In: The New York Times. Retrieved August 17, 2013 . 
8. ↑ Kenneth Baker: An overlooked sculptor's work weaves its way into our times. In: San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 18, 2006 . 
9. ↑ Ruth Asawa, Tied Wire Sculptures ( Memento April 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Cooper, Ashton (November 26, 2013) Ruth Asawa's later, meteoric rise out of nowhere BlouinArtinfo, accessed December 6, 2014
11. ^ California sculptor Ruth Asawa this obituary in the SFGate
12. ↑ ^{a b c} biography on the homepage of Ruth Asawa ( Memento from March 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
13. ↑ ^{a b} Activities of Ruth Asawa from her homepage ( Memento from February 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
14. ↑ Ruth Asawa, artist known for intricate wire sculptures, dies at 87 , The Los Angeles Times , by Lee Romney, August 6, 2013