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black and white photograph by Rondal Partridge of Ruth Asawa's living room, a dog and children are sitting on a rug, there are many wire sculptures hanging from the tall rafters above. Someone is sitting at a piano holding a cat(?). In the foreground is a table with ceramic pieces, Asawa was making a cast fountain about the history of San Francisco. ALT

Rondal Partridge: Ruth Aswa’s living room, 1969

color photo showing SFMOMA Ruth Asawa exhibit gallery clad in wood with the Partridge photograph enlarged, there are chairs and a rug to create a living room vibe. Visitors are sitting and standing looking at works in cabinets.ALT
black and white photo by Rondal Partridge also made in 1969 (perhaps same day as the living room photo) showing Asawa looking directly at the camera, she's in a studio space and there are many hanging sculptures and other projects on a table.ALT

If you are in San Francisco any time the next few months, plan to see the incredible Ruth Asawa exhibit at SFMOMA (through September). The exhibit culminates in a wood-clad gallery featuring a large reproduction of the photo of her living room Rondal Partridge (Imogen Cunningham’s son) made in 1969. The rug and chairs and hanging sculpture capture what it would have been like to experience Asawa’s work in situ and visitors were using it as intended.

In the New York Times, Hilarie M. Sheets has a long feature (gift link) with photos, background and details about the exhibit.

black and white photo showing a small (10 inches?) wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa which is a portrait of Imogen Cunningham, shape is outline of a head with a smaller hair bun shape on top. Shown facing directly. photo by wb.ALT
black and white photo showing a small (10 inches?) wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa which is a portrait of Imogen Cunningham, shape is outline of a head with a smaller hair bun shape on top. Side view of sculpture. photo by wb.ALT

Asawa had a long term project of casting clay masks of family, friends and visitors, producing hundreds of them. I wasn’t aware she also made portraits out of wire? In the same “living room” gallery there’s a 1953 portrait of Imogen Cunningham in wire. I don’t see this piece online anywhere. It’s from a private collection (maybe the Partridge family?) and searching their names returns Cunningham’s many portraits of Asawa.

a black and white portrait of Ruth Asawa by Imogen Cunningham, Asawa is sitting at a table with an in progress wire sculpture, wearing a sweatshirt. there's a large roll of wire next to the sculpture. on her fingers she is wearing thimbles. through a doorway in the background are more wire sculptures hanging.ALT

Imogen Cunningham, Ruth Asawa, 1956

My own San Fransisco memory of Asawa was learning about her in the 1990s through her public artworks. Nostalgia for one late night walking home from North Beach down to Market Street in the first months of living in the city, being captivated by “San Francisco Fountain” near Union Square. What seemed touristy and homey (to someone in their early 20s) in the daylight attracted with deep, tactile shadows at night with nobody around. The density of it created the feeling of an ancient vessel of history, for a city that burned to the ground 90 years earlier.

black and white photo of Ruth Asawa sitting on stairs wearing a jacket with a thick wool collar, nearby is her large San Francisco fountain, a round sculpture blending into the stairs covered with hundreds of small figures and buildings depicting various historic and cultural aspects of the cityALT

Laurence Cuneo, Ruth Asawa and her San Francisco Fountain on Union Square, San Francisco, California, 1973

An interesting thing happened when when the De Young Museum building opened in 2005 in Golden Gate Park. In the main atrium they installed this enormous, but mid, Gerhard Richter photo mural (which served as a proto-selfie background and hung there for over a decade). They also installed a handful of Asawa wire sculptures hanging in a corner of the museum, in the elevator lobby to the observation deck. You didn’t need to buy a ticket to go to the observation deck and it offers amazing views of the city, a perfect spot to bring visitors. It was a humble location, poured concrete walls, lowly lit. The works felt somewhat shoved into a corner of the museum, but this made a calming, intimate encounter while you waited. This was before phones, every photo you’d see on Flickr seemed to include the fire alarm (only SF documentarian Steve Rhodes’ photos from this era survived the Flickr paywall). Over the next year or two, every San Franciscan went to see the observation deck and everyone in the city knew about Ruth Asawa’s wire sculptures.

Date posted: 2025/04/19 17:04:14
Date liked: 2025/04/19 22:04:06
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Liked from: it's never summer
Originally posted from: rondalpartridge.com
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