---

---

RUTH ASAWA (b.1926, Norwalk, CA)

1942	During World War II, 16 year old Asawa and her family are detained at the Santa Anita Racetrack.
1943	They are transferred to the Rohwer  Relocation Center in Arkansas, where Asawa receives her High School diploma.
1943-1946	Attends Milwaukee State Teachers College; her Japanese heritage impedes student teacher training; could not fulfill requirements for her degree.
1946-1949	Receives scholarship to Black Mountain College, North Carolina; studies with avant-garde artists Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller.  Here she begins experimenting with crocheted wire sculpture and also meets her future husband, architect Albert Lanier.
1949	Marries Albert Lanier and moves to San Francisco.
1950-1960	Exhibits in solo and group shows internationally including San Francisco Museum of Art and deYoung Museum, Oakland Art Museum, Chicago’s Art Institute, New York’s Whitney and MOMA and the Sao Paulo Bienal in Brazil.
1965	Receives the Tamarind Lithography Workshop fellowship; creates 52 lithographs.
1968-1972	Active in SF Public Schools; introduces dough as sculpture technique. Serves on  SF Art Commission.
1974	Appointed to President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health.
1976	Appointed to the California Arts Council.
1980	Serves on the National Endowment for the Arts.
1982	February 12 is declared Ruth Asawa Day in San Francisco.
1968-1998	Receives two Honorary Doctorate of Arts degrees, a Bachelor of Fine Arts and many, many Awards.
2002	Participates in making The Garden of Remembrance at San Francisco State University in memory of the devastation caused to Japanese-Americans by World War II internment.

 
Solo Exhibitions:

1953	Design Research, Cambridge, MA
1954, 56, 58	Peridot Gallery, NY
1960	M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
1963	Shop 1, Rochester, NY
1965	Pasadena Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
1969	Los Angeles County Fair Capper Gallery, San Francisco
1973	San Francisco Museum of Art, Retrospective View Van Doren Gallery, San Francisco Baxter Gallery, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
1978	Fresno Art Center, Fresno, CA
1979	Santa Cruz County Building, Santa Cruz, CA Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA Cedar Street Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA
1987	San Francisco City College Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1996	J.J. Brookings Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2001-2002	Completing the Circle, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA; Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
2003	Tobey C. Moss Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Group Exhibitions:

1954	Four Artists, San Francisco Museum of Art
1962	San Francisco Museum of Art
1968	Mills College, Oakland, CA Museum West, Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
1969	San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1970	Dominican College, San Rafael, CA
1973	Van Doren Gallery, San Francisco
1982	Fiberworks, Berkeley, CA
1984	Evergreen Galleries, Olympia, WA
1987-1988	The Eloquent Object, Philbrook Museum, Oakland Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Art
1988	Passages: A Survey of California Women Artists, Oakland Museum of Art
1989-1990	Blueprint for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
1992	Syntax Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
1993	Pacific Rim: Japan, California Crafts Museum, San Francisco Asian Roots, Western Soil, Berkeley Arts Center
1995	University of Michigan With New Eyes, San Francisco State University Gallery
1996	Generations - The Lineage of Influence in Bay Area Art, Richmond Arts Center
1999	Art From Stone: Prints from the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, 1960-1970, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
2000	Raumkorper Netze und Andere Gebilde, Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland Made in California: Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
2001	Asian Roots, Western Soil, Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA Leading the Way: Visionary Asian American Artists of the Older Generation, Gordon College, Wenham, MA
2001-2003	Vital Forms: American Art in the Atomic Age, 1940-1960, Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY (traveling)

Public Commissions:

1963-1965	Joseph Magnin Co., San Francisco and Topanga Canyon: Woven and Tied Wire Sculpture
1965	J.L. Hudson, Detroit, MI: Tied Wire Sculpture
1966	Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, Andrea: Cast bronze fountain
1971	The City of Phoenix, AZ, Civic Plaza: Tied bronze wire fountain
1970-1973	The Hyatt Corporation of America, Grand Hyatt on Union Square: Cast bronze fountain
1974	Makota Hagiwara, Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco: Bronze plaque
1977-1979	DeBartolo Corporation of Youngstown, OH, Mission Viejo, CA: Cast bronze sculpture
1984	Ramada Renaissance Hotel of San Francisco, San Francisco Yesterday and Today: Glass fiber reinforced concrete bas relief
1988	Beringer Winery, St. Helena, CA: Cast bronze fountain
1994	City of San Jose, County of Santa Clara, and the Local Japanese-American Community, Japanese American Internment Memorial Sculpture, San Jose, CA: Cast bronze bas-relief sculpture

Private Commissions:

1979	Crown Zellerbach Corporation, San Francisco: Bronze bas-relief plaques
1996	Dorothy and Theodore Kitt, San Francisco: Welded bronze gate

Awards:

1969	Osaka Expo
1973	Cable Car Award, San Francisco Visitors & Convention Bureau
1974	Fine Arts Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects Honorary Doctorate Degree, California College of Arts and Crafts Robert Kirkwood Award, San Francisco Foundation
2/12/1982	Ruth Asawa Day, City and County of San Francisco
1983	Honorary Masters Degree, Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA
1989	Arts Award, Asian Heritage Council
1990	Cyril Magnin Award, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
1992	Outstanding Achievement in the Visual Arts, Women’s Caucus for Art
1995	Golden Apple Lifetime Achievement Award, San Francisco Education Fund Golden Ring Lifetime Achievement Award, Asian American Arts Foundation Artist-Mentor in Visual Arts Award, International Network of Performing & Visual Arts Schools
1996	Art with Elders Honor, Ministry to Nursing Homes
1997	Lifetime Achievement Award, Precita Eyes Mural Center Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, San Francisco Art Institute
1998	Honorary Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Milwaukee Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, San Francisco State University
2001	Distinguished Woman Artist for 2001, Fresno Art Museum’s Council of 100

Collections:

Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA

Addison Gallery, Andover, MA

Williams College, MA

Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Bibliography:
Books:

Imogen Cunningham: Photographs, Imogen Cunningham, University of Washington Press, 1970

Ruth Asawa’s San Francisco Fountain, Sally Woodbridge, 1973

The Alvarado Experience, Andrea Jepson and Sharon Litzky, 1973

Textile Techniques in Metal, Arline M. Fisch, Van Norstrand Reinhold, NY, 1975

The Alvarado Experience, Andrea Jepson and Sharon Litzky, 1976

The Arts and Community Oral History Project, “Ruth Asawa, Art, Competence and Citywide Cooperation for San Francisco”, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1980

50 West Coast Artists, Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, G.K. Hall & Co., Boston, 1982

The Arts at Black Mountain College, Mary Emma Harris, MIT Press, 1987

American Women Sculptors, Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, G.K. Hall & Co., Boston, 1982

Gifted Woman, Howard Schatz, Pacific Photographic Press, San Francisco, 1992

Worlds in Collision: Dialogues on Multicultural Art Issues, Carlos Villa, Project Director, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, 1994

ART PICTORIAL, Asahi Art Communications Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 1996

Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millennium, Thomas Zung, Editor, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2001

Catalogues:

Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective View, San Francisco Museum of Art, 1973

The Eloquent Object, Marsha Manhart and Tom Manhart, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, 1987

Synergetic Circus: Buckminster Fuller’s Sea of Intuition, P3 Alternative Museum of Tokyo, interview, 1989

Blueprint for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1989

Films:

Ruth Asawa: On Forms and Growth, by Robert Snyder, Masters and Masterworks Production, Inc. Pacific Palisades, CA, Commissioned by Buckminster Fuller, 1978