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Ruth Asawa Through Line

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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Ruth Asawa Through Line offers a groundbreaking exploration of the central role drawing played in Ruth Asawa's diverse artistic practice. Known primarily for her delicate looped-wire sculptures, Asawa was also a prolific drawer, maintaining numerous sketchbooks that informed and intertwined with her sculptural work. This volume traces her creative journey, from early lessons in an internment camp to her influential time at Black Mountain College, highlighting her connections to the Bay Area arts community and educational initiatives. Featuring over one hundred reproduced drawings, many previously unpublished, the book is organised thematically to reflect Asawa's cyclical approach to art-making.
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Format: Hardback
$9599
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book will appeal to art enthusiasts, students, and scholars interested in modern and contemporary arts, especially those with a focus on drawing, sculpture, and American art history. It is ideal for readers fascinated by interdisciplinary artistic practices and the legacy of influential artists like Ruth Asawa.

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A groundbreaking examination of how the act of drawing was a vital component of Ruth Asawa’s multifaceted art

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Ruth Asawa Through Line offers a groundbreaking examination of how the act of drawing was a vital component of Ruth Asawa’s multifaceted art.

Ruth Asawa (1926–2013), widely known for her looped-wire sculptures, was an inveterate drawer. She filled sketchbook after sketchbook and even stated that drawing was central to her sculpture. This volume is the first to consider the significance of drawing in Asawa’s oeuvre throughout her career.

Featuring essays that examine the range of Asawa’s aesthetic maneuvers across materials and techniques, this book explores how Asawa’s drawing intertwined with the Bay Area arts community and her contributions to public education as a teacher and organiser. It also discusses the influence of Josef Albers’s pedagogy and Asawa’s lifelong adoption of his type of paper folding.

Tracing Asawa’s artistic journey from her first formal art lessons in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II through her time at Black Mountain College and beyond, this comprehensive overview of the artist’s drawings includes reproductions of more than one hundred works—many of which have never been published—organised into eight thematic sections. These sections cut through time, reflecting an art-making practice that was more circular or cyclical than linear.

Distributed for the Menil Collection and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Exhibition Schedule

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
(September 16, 2023–January 15, 2024)

The Menil Collection, Houston
(March 22–July 21, 2024)

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

“A revelatory exhibition. . . . [A] fine exhibition catalog. . . . Asawa’s works on paper are a field map for her restless and irrepressibly generous vision.” — Nancy Princenthal, New York Times, Critic’s Pick

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780300273281

Publisher: Yale University Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 26 September 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: Yale University Press

Illustration: 200 color + b-w illus.

Contributors:

  • Edited by Edouard Kopp
  • Edited by Kim Conaty
  • Contributions by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander
  • Contributions by Jordan Troeller
  • Contributions by Scout Hutchinson
  • Contributions by Kirsten Marples
  • Contributions by Isabel Bird

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 241.0mm

Height: 279.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 232

Collections

Arts & Culture Education & Reference Non-Fiction

About the Author

Kim Conaty is Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Edouard Kopp is John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator at the Menil Drawing Institute, Houston.

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