Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa’s intricately woven wire artworks expanded the possibilities of 20th-century sculpture. The late Japanese American artist introduced light, transparency, and movement into the traditionally rigid and monumental discipline. Asawa, who also made delicate works on paper, took inspiration from nature—the patterns of spiral shells and desert plants, for example, and the transparencies of spider webs and insect wings. Asawa studied art at Black Mountain College under the tutelage of avant-garde icons such as Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller. She went on to exhibit widely in New York, Los Angeles, London, and beyond. Asawa’s work belongs in the collections of institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among many others. Her sculptures regularly fetch over $1 million on the secondary market. Through her beguiling weave patterns and material innovation, Asawa made space for traditionally overlooked craft practices in 20th-century abstraction.