Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) has exhibited widely throughout the world since the early 1950s. In 1965, Walter Hopps organized a solo exhibition of the artist’s sculptures and drawings at the Pasadena Art Museum (now Norton Simon Museum) in California, where the artist completed a residency at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop the same year. Other solo presentations include those held at the San Francisco Museum of Art (1973); Fresno Art Museum, California (traveled to Oakland Museum of California; 2001-2002); de Young Museum, San Francisco (2006); Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas (2012); and Norton Simon Museum of Art, California (2014).

Work by the artist has been included in a number of major group exhibitions, including the Annual Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1955 and 1958); the São Paulo Biennial (1955); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1959), among others. Most recently, her work was featured in the critically acclaimed traveling group exhibition Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957, held at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. In 2015, her work was on view as part of America is Hard to See, the inaugural exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s new building. Other recent group exhibitions include Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947-2016, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Los Angeles; Black Mountain College: Shaping Craft + Design, Black Mountain College Museum Arts + Center, Asheville, North Carolina (2013); The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (2010).

The artist’s work is represented in prominent museum collections, including the de Young Museum, San Francisco; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art, California; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, among others. Asawa has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards.

Above: Ruth Asawa Holding a Form-Within-Form Sculpture, 1952. Photo: Imogen Cunningham © 2017 Imogen Cunningham Trust. Artwork © Estate of Ruth Asawa