Ruth Asawa

Untitled (PT.106, Plane Tree #12)

1959

Inky brush strokes fill the center third of a sheet of paper and branch sideways to the edges, ending in watery splash marks

Not on view

Date
1959

Classification
Drawings

Medium
Brush and ink on paper

Dimensions
Sheet (sight): 12 3/8 × 18 7/8in. (31.4 × 47.9 cm) Image (sight): 12 3/8 × 18 7/8in. (31.4 × 47.9 cm)

Accession number
2016.5

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Gregg Seibert

Rights and reproductions
© 2020 Estate of Ruth Asawa / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy The Estate of Ruth Asawa and David Zwirner

API
artworks/47697

Visual description

We're looking at Ruth Asawa's Plane Tree #12, 1959. It's a brush-and-ink drawing on paper. The sheet is almost 12.5 by 19 inches long.Clara Rojas-Sebesta, Ellsworth Kelly Conservator of Works on Paper.This drawing is an abstraction of the plane trees with a center trunk dominating the center of the composition with two branches on the upper left and to the right. Asawa made a number of drawings based on plane trees—or sycamore trees—that grew in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Asawa has created the feeling of the knot drawings with a large, very wet inked brush. She's using a sumi ink on a thin paper, and you can see a lot of rippling and distortions in the paper that hint to what the materials were that she was using. As the ink's dried, the water evaporated, leaving little particles of ink across the surface, which also suggest the textured surface of the sycamore tree. You can also get a sense of the movement of Asawa's hand as she created these circular forms throughout the trunk. As she moved towards the edges of the sheet, she used stronger gestures and splashed the ink so that they moved off the edges to the center left and to the right, giving that sense of the branching and maybe leaves of this sycamore tree. It's a fairly thin sheet of paper, so she probably would have clipped it to a larger board as she was working outside and down on a flat surface to get those kinds of slash marks. So the ink flows beyond the edges of the sheet of paper on all edges. For this drawing, she chose a very high-sheen coated paper that would have responded very quickly to the watery ink, and you see that throughout with distortions and ripples. It's a very warm, beige white color, which gives sort of a natural contrast or warmth to this portrait of a tree. Where the ink pooled in certain areas, it's darker, and where she put greater pressure on the brush, it pushed the black particles of ink to the side and that would give you a lighter and darker gray appearance, also suggesting the texture of the sycamore tree. In the lower right corner we also see Asawa's signature stamp, which would have been found on many of her artworks.

Exhibitions

Ruth Asawa Through Line

Sept 16, 2023–Jan 15, 2024

Installation photography

Installation view of Ruth Asawa Through Line (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 16, 2023–January 2024). On wall, from left to right: Untitled (S.270, Hanging Six-Lobed, Complex Interlocking Continuous Form within a Form with Two Interior Spheres), 1955 (refabricated 1957–58); Untitled (ZP.04, Four Looped-Wire Sculptural Forms), c. mid-to-late 1950s; Untitled (ZP.05, Four Looped-Wire Sculptural Forms), c. mid-late 1950s; Untitled (PF.295, Endive), c. early 1990s; Redwood 356 (PF.1012, Cross-Section of Redwood Tree), 1960; Untitled (BMC.148, Trees), c. 1948–49; Untitled (PF.1016, Eucalyptus Grove), 1961; Untitled (PT.106, Plane Tree #12), 1959; Untitled (PT.064, Plane Tree), c. early 1960s; Untitled (S.842, Mounted Paperfold of Alternating Horizontal Black and White Zig-Zag Pattern), c. 1952; Untitled (S.839, Mounted Paperfold of Columns of Alternating Black and White Parallelograms), c. 1952; Untitled (S.841, Mounted Paperfold of Alternating Vertical Black and White Stripes), c. 1952; Untitled (S.843, Mounted Paperfold with Diagonal Black and White Stripes), c. 1952; On projector: Breathing, 1989; Untitled (FF.1211, Paul Lanier on Patterned Blanket), 1961; Untitled (AB.004, Waves), c. late 1950s–early 1961; Untitled (MI.053, Houses and Hills), 1963; Untitled (AB.002, Waves 2), c. late 1950s; Bentwood Rocker (MI.176), c. 1959–63; Untitled (MI.153, Seven Thonet-Style Bentwood Chairs), c. 1950s; Untitled (SF.031, Red Meander on Pink), c. late 1950s; Untitled (AB.005, Waves), c. late 1950s–1961; Untitled (BMC.57, Curved Lines), c. 1946–49; Untitled (BMC.59, Meander - Straight Lines), c. 1948. Photograph by Filip Wolak

From the exhibition Ruth Asawa Through Line
Installation view of Ruth Asawa Through Line (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 16, 2023–January 2024). From left to right: Untitled (BMC.148, Trees), c. 1948–49; Untitled (PF.1016, Eucalyptus Grove), 1961; Untitled (PT.106, Plane Tree #12), 1959; Untitled (PT.064, Plane Tree), c. early 1960s; Untitled (S.003, Freestanding Reversible Undulating Form), 1998; Untitled (PT.062, Blue and Black Ink Wash [Water]), c. early 1960s; Untitled (AN.077, Pigeons on Brick), 1963. Photograph by Filip Wolak

From the exhibition Ruth Asawa Through Line

Ruth Asawa
4 works in the collection, 12 exhibitions

View artist