Ruth Asawa, Retrospective, SFMOMA

By: Artist Guy Diehl

When my family and I moved to the Bay Area in 1960, I was 11 years old and curious about what Art and Fine Art are about. Certain artists surrounded my environment as a young artist, but I wasn't aware of who had created their works. The mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square was one of those pieces of art made by Ruth Asawa. Over the years, as an artist, I was exposed to her work in limited ways, either through recommendations to see her woven wire sculpture or her public installations. Her work was present in our community as public art that always sparked questions about who made these pieces. 

In 2023, during an art tour to New York, I visited an exhibition at the Whitney Museum by Ruth Asawa that showcased only her works on paper. This experience highlighted her versatile talent—something I hadn't fully appreciated before. Her works on paper are varied, mesmerizing, and intriguing, with a curious quality in how they are executed. After seeing the current retrospective at SFMOMA, I concluded that she is a magician. What I mean is that her creations evoke mystery and puzzlement about how they were made. An artist is someone who creates things never seen before, drawing from personal life experiences. Learning how to weave baskets from the Southwest Indigenous peoples she encountered allowed her to develop a technique of bending wire into baskets within baskets, resulting in an authentic mid-century aesthetic shared by many other artists of that era. 

An untitled double-page sketch of cosmos by Ruth Asawa, from 1976–89.

As a realist painter myself, I focus on attention to detail when necessary. I realize that much of what is created in my genre can be seen as magical, a way to trick the eye by creating a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface. With Asawa's drawings and her wire-woven sculptures, they go beyond my understanding of how they are executed with such complete grace and compositional balance. Many examples are her pen and ink drawings of a vase of flowers with roses, a cluster of leaves, or a kaleidoscopic pattern of interlocking lines, all created with precision and balance that leave me, as a viewer, puzzled about how they were made. I have seen similar techniques before in etchings by Bay Area artist Gordon Cook. I believe Asawa was fortunate to possess the temperament and patience needed to master a technique that only becomes fully understood when one attempts to replicate it themselves. 

This is where the magic happens. This also applies to her wire-woven sculptures. How did she achieve those? As an artist myself, I have realized over the years that artists see the world differently. But as I look at her work, especially the pen drawings, I truly cannot grasp how they are made. As a visual thinker with a background in both painting and drawing, I can only assume her technique is hidden from the viewer. Speculation can be interesting, but it may not reflect how she actually worked. Her pen and ink drawings, at first glance, seem very spontaneous and, to a certain extent, for lack of a better word, nice. Upon closer inspection, my understanding of how they are created exceeds my visual experience as an artist. This also applies to her wire woven sculptures, which exhibit such uniform balance and presence that it leaves the viewer—myself included—wondering, how is that done? 

Untitled (Albert’s Rose Bouquet), by Ruth Asawa, 1990

The magic of her work must be kept secret, like that of a magician. They won't reveal how the trick is done to protect the illusion; if they did, the entertainment and captivating attention would be lost. Asawa's magic, both two- and three-dimensional works, is stunning, timeless, emotionally heartfelt, and truly a work of Fine Art. 

Ruth's woven sculpture reflects a period of mid-century modernism not only on the West Coast but also shared with artists like Alexander Calder and his mobiles, as well as Ray and Charles Eames in their contemporary design studio. Her retrospective exhibition guides us through her life and her ongoing commitment to her family and the Bay Area community where she lived. 

Again, as an artist, I greatly appreciate seeing both of these shows within two years. She is a true master whose work will stand the test of time, representing the 20th-century art world. 

This exhibition is on view through Tuesday, September 2nd at SFMOMA.