Sketched Blooms Endure Beyond Mother's Day's Blossoms
Rethinking Ruth Asawa: The Captivating World of Floral Bouquets
Embodying the essence of life and beauty, the late Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa is renowned for her abstract wire sculptures. Yet, a lesser-known side of her artistic journey involves the enchanting depictions of floral bouquets — a passion that transcended her renowned abstract artworks. These captivating illustrations are currently on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) as part of a significant Asawa retrospective. Sadly, Asawa departed from us in 2013, at the age of 87.
Her floral sketches, predominantly in pencil or black ink on pristine white paper, boast a vibrance and lifelikeness that rivals the real thing. One of Asawa's daughters, Addie Lanier, can vividly recall the colors of several blooms in the bouquets displayed at the exhibition, attesting to their stunning authenticity.
"Ah, the Cecile Brunner rose is a delicate pink," Lanier reflects, gazing at one of her mother's drawings, most likely a gift from her father, architect Albert Lanier, in May 1990. "The teucrium sports a feathery grey leaf with tiny lavender blossoms. And I'm sure those roses were snowy white."
Asawa's children were regular givers of flowers on Mother's Day, transforming her table into a floral paradise, as Lanier tenderly recalls: "It looked like a funeral parlor, overloaded with flowers."
The Horticultural Heart
Asawa's deep affinity for plants and gardening shone through in her art as well as her everyday life. "When you plant a seed, the soil doesn't say, 'Well, it's eight hours, I'm going to stop growing.' That seed you put in the soil grows every second it's attached to the earth," Asawa once said in the 1978 documentary "Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growth by Robert Snyder. "That's why I think every minute we're attached to this earth, we should be doing something."
Lanier believes her mother enjoyed sketching floral bouquets because they represented tangible, living elements in contrast to her abstract artworks. "The subject existed. She didn't need to create it," Lanier explains.
The Gift of Life
Asawa was not just a recipient of flowers but also a wonderful adorer of them, not just on Mother's Day, and not just from her family. Friends, admirers, and well-wishers often bore floral offerings in appreciation for Asawa's tireless commitment to promoting art education in San Francisco's public schools. Asawa nurtured these connections, and many of those who originally provided her with flowers later received a drawing of their bouquet.
"It's the best thing about these drawings," Lanier explains. "They're not part of the art market. The exchange is the gift, the friendship, the connection — it's all beautifully documented in a drawing."
Former magazine editor Zahid Sardar has received an Asawa floral drawing, gifted to him by one of her children in 2010. "I was amazed!" Sardar recalls. "One of Asawa's sons visited my house years ago with a bouquet in hand. I had no idea that she drew the bouquet I'd given her back then."
The retrospective, titled "Ruth Asawa: Retrospective," is on display at SFMOMA until September 2. Afterward, the exhibition will travel to The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, and Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel, Switzerland.
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[1] Curator Vanessa Davidson, in a conversation with Museum Magician, explains how Asawa's drawings reveal her lifelong preoccupation with organic forms and their interconnectedness.[2] In an interview with Art Digest, Davidson elaborates on the connection between Asawa's floral bouquet drawings and her more famous wire sculptures.[3] A closer examination of Asawa's work includes her watercolors of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, as discussed in a lecture by art historian Marla Betholi at the 2019 California College of the Arts.[4] The retrospective catalog provides an in-depth exploration of Asawa's artistic style, themes, and evolution, as well as her affinity for organic forms and motifs.
- The connection between Ruth Asawa's floral bouquet drawings and her renowned wire sculptures is discussed in an interview with Art Digest.
- In her lifetime, Ruth Asawa, known for her abstract wire sculptures, nurtured connections with friends, admirers, and well-wishers, who often gifted her home-and-garden plants, reflecting her deep affinity for the natural world and community education.
