Ruth Asawa: Drawing in Space | David Zwirner

On the occasion of an installation of wire sculptures, drawings, and lithographs by Ruth Asawa at David Zwirner’s 69th Street gallery in New York, this online presentation offers a view of the investigations of material and form, often inspired by nature, that defined the artist’s career for half a century.

Installation view, Ruth Asawa: Drawing in Space, David Zwirner, New York, 2020.

Installation view, Ruth Asawa: Drawing in Space, David Zwirner, New York, 2020.

While best known for her innovative wire sculptures, Asawa had a deep connection to drawing and painting and often depicted plants, flowers, and other organic forms across her work that spanned fifty years. Here, we present a selection of the artist’s smaller sculptures along with prints and works on paper, many of which have not been widely shown.

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Ruth Asawa

Untitled (S.432, Hanging Interlocking Double Trumpets), c. 1958

Hanging sculpture—wire

9 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches
24.1 x 21.6 x 21.6 cm

Asawa began experimenting with looped wire as a student in the 1940s at the renowned Black Mountain College in North Carolina. The Bauhaus pioneer Josef Albers was among her instructors there and her most important mentor; he had a profound influence on her approach to making art, and her wire sculptures are deeply rooted in his teachings.

Asawa was inspired to begin experimenting with wire during a 1947 trip to Toluca, Mexico, where local craftsmen taught her how to create egg baskets from the material.

Ruth Asawa kneeling behind a hanging looped-wire sculpture, 1957 (detail). Photograph by Imogen Cunningham. © Imogen Cunningham Trust

Ruth Asawa kneeling behind a hanging looped-wire sculpture, 1957 (detail). Photograph by Imogen Cunningham. © Imogen Cunningham Trust

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (S.353, Hanging Single-Section, Open-Window Form with Four Flutes), c. 1960-1969

Hanging sculpture—copper wire

14 x 14 x 14 inches
35.6 x 35.6 x 35.6 cm

“Asawa recognized a quality in the baskets she encountered in 1947... that had appealed to her in the courses she took with Josef Albers the year before: the illusion of transparency.”

—Ann Reynolds, art historian

A film still from Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growth, directed by Robert Snyder, 1978. © Masters and Masterworks Productions, Inc.

A film still from Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growth, directed by Robert Snyder, 1978. © Masters and Masterworks Productions, Inc.

“I started in 1962 when a friend of ours brought a desert plant from Death Valley and said, ‘Here’s something for you to draw.’ I tried to draw it, but it was such a tangle that I had to construct it in wire in order to draw it. And then I got the idea that I could use it as a way to work in wire. I began to see all the possibilities: opening up the center and then making it flat on the wall, and putting it on a stand.”

—Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (S.708, Wall-Mounted Tied-Wire Six-Branched Form), c. mid-1960s

Wall-mounted sculpture—copper wire

12 1/2 x 13 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches
31.8 x 33.7 x 15.9 cm

“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.”

—Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (S.764, Hanging Tied-Wire, Closed-Center, Multi-Branched Form Based on Nature), c. 1964-1966

Hanging sculpture—copper wire

5 1/2 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches
14 x 16.5 x 15.9 cm

Asawa in her dining room with tied-wire sculptures, 1963 (detail). Photo by Imogen Cunningham. © 2020 Imogen Cunningham trust.

Asawa in her dining room with tied-wire sculptures, 1963 (detail). Photo by Imogen Cunningham. © 2020 Imogen Cunningham trust.

Raised on a farm in Norwalk, California, Asawa had a lifelong love of observing plants and the influence of foliage, flowers, and biomorphic forms manifests throughout her many bodies of work. Like her wire sculptures, Asawa’s prints and works on paper are often built on simple, repeated gestures that accumulate into complex compositions, typically engaging directly with the natural world and its forms. Across these works, plants and flowers are a recurring motif which Asawa drew from life in order to study their structure.

Ruth Asawa

Poppy (TAM.1479), 1965

Lithograph on paper

30 x 20 1/2 inches
76.2 x 52.1 cm

Edition of 20

Ruth Asawa

Desert Plant (TAM.1560, Tied-Wire Sculpture Drawing with Six-Pointed Star Center), 1965

Lithograph on paper

11 1/8 x 11 1/8 inches
28.3 x 28.3 cm

Edition of 20, 3 AP, 1 BAT, 2 TP, 9 Tamarind Impressions, 1 C

In 1965, Josef Albers recommended Asawa for a fellowship at the famed Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. The two-month workshop typically offered two artists a chance to collaborate with seven master printers. In a fateful stroke of luck, the second student never showed up, giving Asawa the undivided attention of all seven printers.

Ruth Asawa at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. © Hank Baum

Ruth Asawa at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. © Hank Baum

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (TAM.1483, Marigolds), 1965

Lithograph on paper

11 x 11 inches
27.9 x 27.9 cm
Edition of 20, 3 AP, 1 BAT, 1 TP, 1 C

Ruth Asawa

Succulents (TAM.1475, Three succulents on dark black ground), 1965

Lithograph on paper

19 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches
49.5 x 62.2 cm

Edition of 20

Ruth Asawa

Desert Star (P.004, Tied wire tree with asymmetrical five pointed star in center branching to an enclosed square), 1987

Offset lithograph on paper

8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches
21.6 x 21.6 cm

During this prolific period, she produced more than fifty original lithographs, including works that investigate the form and color of succulents, hydrangeas, poppies, nasturtiums, irises, and desert flowers.

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (TAM.1482, Calla Lillies), 1965

Lithograph on paper

11 x 11 inches
27.9 x 27.9 cm

Edition of 20

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (TAM.1480, Succulent [line drawing]), 1965

Lithograph on paper

11 1/4 x 11 inches
28.6 x 27.9 cm

Edition of 20, 3 AP, 1 BAT, 1 TP, 9 Tamarind Impressions, 1 C

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (S.793, Hanging Two Spheres Attached One on Top of the Other with Chain), c. 1954

Hanging sculpture—brass wire and brass chain

18 x 7 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches
45.7 x 19.4 x 19.4 cm

“In her lifetime, the artist Ruth Asawa weathered storms of weak interpretation … that made too much of her positions as a wife and mother and not nearly enough of her contributions to modernism and abstraction. Asawa’s hanging looped-wire sculptures were a triumph of line and form, playing with weight, gravity, visibility, the continuity of multiple spheres and cones, and the ambiguity of inside and outside space.”

—Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Artforum

Ruth Asawa’s sculptures in her living room, San Francisco, 1995. Photo by Laurence Cuneo. © The Estate of Ruth Asawa / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Ruth Asawa’s sculptures in her living room, San Francisco, 1995. Photo by Laurence Cuneo. © The Estate of Ruth Asawa / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Asawa, whose artistic training was primarily in basic design and drawing, had a devoted drawing practice that she exercised daily to sharpen her perception and concentration. She was known for drawing every day, including while attending public meetings as an activist.

Ruth Asawa

Allegra and Bob's Red Amaryllis (PF.669), 1997

Ink on paper

22 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches
57.2 x 44.5 cm

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (PF.609, Petunias), n.d.

Pen and black ink on paper

17 x 14 inches
43.2 x 35.6 cm

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (PF.1112, Irises), 1975

Pen and ink on paper

10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches
27 x 21 cm

Signed, dated, and inscribed lower right recto

Ruth Asawa

Untitled (PF.1113, Iris stem), 1975

Pen and ink on paper

10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches
27 x 21 cm

Signed, dated, and inscribed lower right recto

Imogen Cunningham

Ruth Asawa and Her Wire Sculpture 2, 1956

Gelatin silver print

9 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches
24.1 x 18.4 cm

Imogen Cunningham

Ruth Asawa and Her Wire Sculpture 2, 1951

Gelatin silver print

4 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches
11.4 x 8.9 cm

“I state, without hesitation or reserve, that I consider Ruth Asawa to be the most gifted, productive, and originally inspired artist that I have ever known personally. That statement includes many of this century’s most celebrated ‘greats.’”

—Buckminster Fuller

David Zwirner, 34 East 69th Street, New York.

David Zwirner, 34 East 69th Street, New York.

Header image: Ruth Asawa, sculptor, 1956 (detail). Photo by Imogen Cunningham. © Imogen Cunningham Trust

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