Overview

Gallery 1 - Black Mountain College, 1946-49 is a square gallery with a case in the center and mixed media artwork along the four walls.

We enter Gallery 1 in the back left corner of the room. In this gallery there are eight described artworks. Along the wall on our left is a painting. The front left corner in front of us has a suspended looped-wire sculpture hanging above a low plinth, and the wall in front of us has a second painting. The case in the center of the room has five described looped-wire sculptures.

The exit of Gallery 1 is in the front right corner of the room, diagonal to where we entered Gallery 1. When we exit Gallery 1, we actually enter Gallery 3 so we need to make a hard right into Gallery 2 which juts off to the right from Gallery 3.

Wall Text

Black Mountain College, 1946-49

Between 1946 and 1949, Asawa attended Black Mountain College (BMC) in rural Asheville, North Carolina. There, she discovered “an entirely new attitude toward learning, where each instructor was a practicing artist, dancer, musician, or mathematician, who understood his craft by doing it.” She took classes in design, color theory, painting, mathematics, and dance and studied with artist Josef Albers and architect Buckminster Fuller, both of whom became her mentors and lifelong friends. She developed ideas in dialogue with students, including artist Ray Johnson, photographer Hazel Larsen Archer, artist and dancer Elizabeth Schmitt Jennerjahn, and her future husband, architect Albert Lanier.

Asawa’s early drawings, paintings, and wireworks took inspiration from natural forms and mathematical patterns, among other sources. A formative trip to Mexico in 1947 introduced Asawa to wire baskets and weaving techniques for “knitting wire”, a method that would later define her iconic sculptures.

Image

Caption

Asawa and fellow student Ora Williams (Carter) outside the Studies Building, Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1946
Photograph by Mary Parks (Washington)

Description

A black and white photo of two women sitting outside on a stone ledge both wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts with sandals. On our left, a young Asawa—a Japanese American woman—looks at us, her hands clasped around her propped up knee, wind blowing her long straight black hair around her round face. Williams, a Black woman, sits on our right in profile facing our left, her black chin length hair is pulled back in a headband, a slight wave at the ends. Her arms hug her knees as she looks off into the distance, lips parted slightly, perhaps in mid-sentence. In the background is a rustic stone wall, a porch overhang, and trees in the distance. Across the surface of the photo are many fine lines or cracks.

Objects

Untitled (S.358, Freestanding Double-Layered Basket)

Label Text

ca. 1955
Brass wire
Kohler/Mah Collection

Visual Description

A shallow and wide mouthed bowl crafted from a double layer of looped brass wire about the size of a large salad bowl. Its overall color is a muted metallic gray and the basket's edge is rounded where the material bends to create the double layer.

Untitled (S.784, Freestanding Basket)

Label Text

ca. 1948-49
Copper wire
Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut

Visual Description

A copper looped-wire basket in a wide-open oval shape, about the size of a large serving platter. The basket is crafted from a pattern of interwoven loops that create a net-like appearance. It has a wide and flat base with a short, curved edge.

Untitled (S.363, Freestanding Basket)

Label Text

ca. 1948
Copper wire
Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina, Black Mountain College Collection, museum purchase with funds provided by 2010 Collectors’ Circle with additional funds provided by Frances Myers

Visual Description

A small round copper basket with a wide and slightly flared opening at the top, about the size of two cupped adult hands. The wire is intricately looped together in a loose pattern, creating a lattice-like effect. The metal appears to have an aged, patinated finish, with hints of bluish-green tones.

Untitled (S.596, Freestanding Basket)

Label Text

ca. 1958
Enameled copper wire
Collection of Daniel and Rebecca Wolf, New Jersey

Visual Description

A reddish copper wire basket made from an intricate pattern of continuous looping wire. The mesh is woven tightly at the base and curves in on itself before opening at the top, creating a bulbous form about the size of a large watermelon. The rim of the basket ends in a row of looped wire.

Untitled (S.481, Freestanding Basket [Stripes])

Label Text

early 1950s
Copper and steel wire
Private collection

Asawa’s early looped-wire baskets demonstrate many of the techniques she went on to develop in her hanging sculptures: combining copper and steel wire to create color changes, exploring different gauges of wire, and using double layers to create shadows and transparency within the open forms. In 1947, after returning from a trip to Toluca, Mexico, where she learned a technique of wire basketry, Asawa began to make works such as these “whose mesh was of a uniform consistency—whose shapes were roughly symmetrical and reasonably firm for handling.” She continued to explore the form into the next decade.

Visual Description

A small basket made of looped copper and steel wire, about the size of a small melon. The mesh-like surface is intricately constructed, forming a lattice-like structure. The copper and steel alternate creating subtle horizontal stripes of darker steel metal and vibrant coppery red.

Untitled (BMC.52, Dancers)

Label Text

ca. 1948-49
Oil on paper
Private collection

Composed of layered rounded forms on a yellow ground, the Dancers motif seen here was a precursor to Asawa’s wire sculptures of the 1950s. This work is one of a number of drawings and paintings of an abstracted dancing figure, which was inspired by dance classes she took from Merce Cunningham and with Jennerjahn in her final year at BMC. While the interlinked compositions predict the gravity-defying weightlessness of her later wire sculptures, they also draw directly from the color studies and optical experiments Albers emphasized in his figure-ground exercises. Bridging her fascination with physical motion and visual experience, the Dancers works reflect Asawa’s deep interest in movement, abstraction, and perception.

Visual Description

Oil painting on paper of an abstract composition with several colorful blue and red rounded shapes against a rich yellow background, about the size of a cutting board. The outlines of the shapes resemble the number 8, or two ovals stacked on top of each other, and are primarily in shades of red, orange, and black with various shades of blue horseshoe and circle shapes tucked within. The ten shapes are clustered in the upper left-hand corner and cascade down the painting. The background is a textured light yellow that grows slightly darker near the bottom quarter of the painting providing a vibrant contrast to the darker, bold shapes.

Untitled (S.264, Hanging Two-Lobed, Single-Layered Continuous Form)

Label Text

1949
Copper wire
Private collection

Visual Description

A suspended symetrical wire looped sculpture resembling a rounded elongated hourglass, about the size of a loaf of bread. The wire looping creates a delicate, lace-like texture, allowing light to pass through. The top of the sculpture peaks slightly from its suspended point.

Untitled (BMC.116, Abstraction [Dogwood Leaves])

Label Text

ca. 1946-49
Watercolor, paint, colored pencil, and graphite on paper mounted on
paper and paperboard
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, gift of Josef Albers

Visual Description

A vibrant abstract mixed media painting centered within a blue rectangular frame, about the size of a small shelf created with a mix of watercolor, paint, colored pencil, and pencil on paper. The artwork consists of a series of nine overlapping, curved shapes resembling leaves arranged in two rows tip to tip. These leaf-like shapes are painted in a variety of bold colors, including orange, red, purple, pink, green, yellow, and black. The colors blend and overlap against an orange, white, and brown textured background. The blue border around the artwork provides a stark contrast, highlighting the vividness of the central composition.

Getting to the Next Gallery

The exit of Gallery 1 is in the front right corner of the room, diagonal to where we entered Gallery 1. When we exit Gallery 1, we actually enter Gallery 3 so we need to make a hard right into Gallery 2 which juts off to the right from Gallery 3.