Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa was born in San Francisco, CA in 1926. Her parents were Japanese farmers who came to the U.S to pursue better job opportunities. During World War II, Asawa and her family were forced off their farm in Norwalk, CA and sent to an internment camp in Arcadia. After 18 months of being forced to live in camps such as Santa Anita and Rohwer, Asawa qualified for a scholarship provided by the Japanese American Student Relocation Council that allowed her to move to Milwaukee where she attend Wisconsin State College of Milwaukee. Asawa also attended BMC from 1946-1949 to further pursue her interest in the arts, focusing on both drawing and painting. At BMC, she was challenged to use found objects within her work by professor Josef Albers. In 1947, Asawa took a trip to Mexico where she was exposed to the traditional art of basket weaving, which inspired her to create a new body of work consisting of floating crocheted wire objects. This became some of her most iconic and well-known work. While at BMC, she met William Albert Lanier and the two married in 1949. She has had solo and group exhibitions since 1953 and has showed in the San Francisco Museum of Art, CA; the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, CA; and the Japanese American National Museum, CA. She has also received honorary doctorates from San Francisco State University, San Francisco Art Institute, and California College of the Arts. Asawa died in August of 2013.