b'Ruth AsawaConsidered an artists artist during her lifetime, Ruth Asawa (19262013) is now recognized as one of Americas leading modernists. Born to Japanese immigrant farmers in California, she was detained in internment camps for Japanese Americans beginning in 1942first at Santa Anita Assembly Center in California and then in Rohwer, Arkansas. While at Santa Anita, Asawa studied with professional artists previously employed as Disney animators. After her release from Rohwer in 1943, she studied to become an art teacher at Milwaukee State Teachers College before being denied her degree due to lingering anti-Japanese sentiment. In 1946, Asawa enrolled at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, the legendary progressive liberal arts school built on the legacy of Germanys Bauhaus school. Asawas teachers included Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller, whose influence manifests in Asawas wire constructions, which relate to Alberss design and paper-folding classes and Fullers architecture. Her upbringing as a Zen Buddhist and the fusion of art and life matured at Black Mountain. She studied Japanese origami and calligraphy and practiced draw-ing daily ; art education became an integral part of her life and philosophy. The drawing Untitled (MI.064, Rocking Chair) is made up of small square marks in a repeated pattern and drawn on both sides, creating lines that form the image of a Thonet-style rocking chair, abstract yet recogniz-able. The method of building complex shapes from simple, repeated, and accumulating elements also appears in Asawas wire sculptures. Untitled (MI.064, Rocking Chair), 1959 Ink on vellum47.660 cm 30 60.3733.8 cm (framed) 31'