Overview

Gallery 7 - Nature and Tied Wire, 1960s is a large rectangle room that mirrors Gallery 6. There are 2D artworks and tied wire sculptures along the walls, a suspended loop wire sculpture in the middle of the room above a round low plinth, and a case with small sculptures on our right near the end of the room.

We enter Gallery 6 in the back left corner of the room at a slight angle. In this gallery there are six described artworks. On the wall to our right is an ink print, on the left wall in the left corner is a looped wire sculpture above a low round plinth, and two tied wire sculptures on the left wall. At the far end of the gallery is a case with small, tied wire sculptures, two of which are described.

The exit to Gallery 8 is halfway along the left wall.

Wall Text

Nature and Tied Wire,1960s

“Nature is my teacher, and I have used materials that are a product of our twentieth century to study her growth patterns.”

—Ruth Asawa

In 1962 a gift of a dried desert plant from Death Valley given to Asawa by friends Paul and Virginia Hassel inspired her to pursue a new direction in her sculpture. Drawing the plant, she found “its intricacy … made it impossible.” She turned to wire, working with bundles and spools that she manipulated into complex branches and other botanical forms. Asawa went on to make “tied-wire” sculptures over the course of the decade and beyond. As she described, these works “take an impersonal material like wire, which is very hard, and then make it into a gentle thing that’s natural looking so that you can take an abstract piece of wire and turn it into a plant. And I like that transition from hard to soft.”

Asawa’s tied-wire works often began with a floral, starlike, or geometric center. As she worked, and the form grew progressively outward, she both responded to the properties of her medium in following “what the wire dictates” and mirrored patterns in the natural world. Asawa’s hanging and wall-mounted sculpture reinvigorated her drawing, which like her works in wire explored new possibilities in geometric designs, airy blooms, and branching tree-like patterns.

Image

Caption

Asawa working on a tied-wire sculpture in the studio at her Noe Valley home in San Francisco, 1969
Photograph by Rondal Partridge © 2025 Rondal Partridge Archive

Description

A black and white image of Asawa, a Japanese American woman, straddling a bench looking down at the wire she is working with in her hands; a partially finished, tied-wire sculpture on the bench in front of her. She looks closely at the wire and wire cutters in her hands; a large spool of wire in front of her. The symmetrical geometric sculpture is quite large, extending off the bench out of the photo frame. It has a five-sided, central design with clusters of many stiff wires radiating outwards like a flower or star burst. The workspace is lit naturally, with sunlight streaming in through large windows.

Objects

Untitled (S.006, Freestanding Electroplated Tied-Wire, Organic Form Based on Nature Mounted on a Carved Redwood Base)

Label Text

ca. 1963
Patinated copper pipe and electroplated copper wire mounted on redwood base
Private collection

Visual Description

A metallic tied-wire sculpture resembling an abstract tree about the size of a beach ball, mounted on a rectangular wooden base. The sculpture sits on a long metal rod extending from the wooden base. Encased at the top of the rod is a thick cluster of metal wires extending outward to our left and right where they split and split and split again forming a complex pattern that mimics branches of a tree. At each split, more wire metal binds the joint. The tips of the numerous single wire threads end in small nodules. The metal is encrusted with a patina silvery surface. The wooden base is textured, with carved swirling wave like patterns.

Untitled (S.059, Wall-Mounted Electroplated Tied-Wire, Center-Tied, Four-Branched Form Based on Nature)

Label Text

ca. 1963
Electroplated copper wire
Private collection

Visual Description

A small sculpture of metallic tied wires, bundled together, resembling a large tassel or handheld broom in construction and size. The wires have a greenish coppery patina, that get thicker near the tips with rounded ends that resemble buds. The bundle is tied at one end, then split into four sections allowing the wires to fan out in an arching pattern.

Desert Flower (SD.262)

Label Text

ca. 1975
Ink on paper
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Marcia and Allen Tusting

For this drawing, Asawa used dark and light-colored inks to trace an intricate network of lines extending from a central floral form. Much like her three-dimensional works in this period, this drawing encapsulates Asawa’s concentrated studies of “the way nature grows and structures,” rather than depicting a specific plant.

Visual Description

An ink drawing of a highly detailed circular pattern resembling a floral motif sits in the center of cream-colored paper. The drawing is about the size of a door mat. At the center is a symmetrical design with thick, dark lines forming petal-like shapes. Surrounding this is an intricate network of branching structures that extend outward, becoming increasingly fine and delicate. These branches start as a dark green and get lighter and more yellowy green as they get smaller and further from the center. The entire shape is rounded and extends off the page at the bottom.

Untitled (S.041, Hanging Four Layers of Hourglass Forms Surrounding a Bud-Shaped Center with an Intersecting Disk in Top)

Label Text

ca. 1962
Galvanized steel and iron wire
Collection of Mindy and Jon Gray

In this looped-wire work Asawa created concentric layers like the petals of a flower, which she mirrored on top and bottom in open blossoming forms that emerge from a narrow center that suggests a stem. Asawa made this work with a transparent plant-like shape and contrasting metals around the time she produced her first tied-wire sculptures. She found unlimited potential in making as many iterations “as there are snowflakes in nature.”

Visual Description

A rust-colored looped-wire hanging sculpture with a multi layered symmetrical hourglass shape, about the size of an armchair. The sculpture has a double-concave shape, with the mesh forming a bulbous section at the top and bottom, connected by a narrow waist. The wire is tightly looped creating a mesh that allows light to pass through. Each nested layer creates increasing density at the center where the most internal layer breaks the symmetry of the repeated hourglass coming to a point at the top and the bottom of the sculpture.

Untitled (S.184, Hanging Tied-Wire, Single-Stem, Multi-Branched Form Based on Nature)

Label Text

ca. 1962
Galvanized steel wire
Collection of Diana Nelson and John Atwater

Among the first group of tied-wire works that Asawa made, this hanging sculpture in the form of a tree branch follows a precise mathematical structure. Starting with a bundled single stalk of up to a thousand individual wires, the artist separated equal portions to form the main branches, then began “dividing again and again” until arriving at edge of the sculpture, where single strands arc in the air like fine twigs.

Visual Description

A suspended tied-wire metal sculpture with a multi-branched form resembling an upside-down bush or branch hanging from its stem. The mostly grey piece is about the size of an office chair, hanging from a short thin ridged stem of bundled and tied wires that fork into a complex network of thin branches and twigs. Its overall shape is rounded with the outermost branches extending and twisting around towards the trunk.

Untitled (S.390, Hanging Tied-Wire, Double-Sided, Center-Tied, Multi-Branched Form with Curly Ends)

Label Text

1963
Copper wire
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, gift of Rita Newman

Here Asawa created a dynamic mirrored effect by tying a bundle of wire at the middle before working outward to create hundreds of sprawling stems. After making her earliest single-stem sculptures, Asawa turned her attention to the center of the tied wires as the starting point. Using copper as her medium, this work marks a shift away from what some critics considered a direct representation of specific plants and trees to a more abstract form. But Asawa considered the double-sided form even more naturalistic, as it reflets the branch and root systems of a tree.

Visual Description

A suspended tied-wire metal sculpture, of a loosely symmetrical design, bundled at the center with branching structures resembling tree branches and roots. The entire piece is about the size of a side table. The center, or trunk, of the sculpture is made of a thick banded cluster of copper wire extending upward and downward, branching off farther and farther away from the main trunk. The many branches create a dense canopy or root system of twigs and tendrils.

Getting to the Next Gallery

The exit to Gallery 8 is halfway along the left wall.