Ruth Asawa with one of her hanging wire sculptures, circa 1957.

*Untitled* (S.250), by Asawa, circa 1955.

With one of her hanging loop-wired sculptures, 1957.

Working inside one of her sculptures, 1957.

With one of her form-within-a-form sculptures, 1951.

With her children in her San Francisco home studio, 1957.

Standing by the redwood doors she carved for her home, 1963.

Zen and the Art of Being Ruth Asawa

Coinciding with a major San Francisco exhibition, an updated biography of the sculptor chronicles her journey from Japanese-internment-camp prisoner to art-world pioneer

“She had survived the Great Depression and World War II, slighted for her gender and interned for her race,” writes Marilyn Chase in the prologue of Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa (2020). “She had toiled in the fields, the studio, and the classroom, elevating work to a form of Zen practice, her hands never still.”

Ruth Asawa’s talent was always recognized by other artists, but in 2006, a retrospective of her work at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco finally caught the attention of the wider world. And in May 2013, two months before she died, at 87, market recognition came: her 11-foot sculpture—Untitled, circa 1970—sold at Christie’s for more than $1.4 million.