New Graphic Biography Delves into the Captivating Early Years of Groundbreaking Artist Ruth Asawa

As a Japanese American teenager incarcerated during WWII, Asawa dreamed of becoming an artist, letting nothing stand in her way

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Ruth Asawa

An Artist Takes Shape

Author

Sam Nakahira

An illustration depicts a young, light-skinned girl seated on her knees while shaping geometric art sculptures. The book title "An Artist Takes Shape" is written in cursive around the sculptures.
Dec 20, 2023

Renowned for her innovative wire sculptures, Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) was a teenager in Southern California when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II.

Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes. Asawa’s family had to abandon their farm, her father was incarcerated, and she and the rest of her family were sent to a detention center in California, and later to a concentration camp in Arkansas. Asawa nurtured her dreams of becoming an artist while imprisoned and eventually made her way to the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape (Getty Publications, $19.95) by Sam Nakahira, developed in consultation with Asawa’s youngest daughter, Addie Lanier, chronicles the genesis of Asawa as an artist—from the horror of Pearl Harbor to her transformative education at Black Mountain College to building a life in San Francisco, where she would further develop and refine her groundbreaking sculpture. Asawa never sought fame, preferring to work on her own terms: for her, art and life were one. Featuring lively illustrations and photographs of Asawa’s artwork, this graphic retelling of her young adult years demonstrates the transformative power of making art. Ages thirteen and up.

Author Information

Sam Nakahira is a comic artist and cultural worker from Los Angeles. She makes comics about overlooked histories, the natural world, dreams, and more.

Endorsements

"A tender and thoughtful rendering of an important artist's life. Sam Nakahira uses the power and beauty of comics to its fullest to immerse you in the mind and genius of Ruth Asawa. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it again!"

— Tillie Walden, Eisner Award–winning cartoonist and illustrator

"Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape is a richly detailed recounting of the artist’s life. It’s so full of clearly conveyed scenes and stories that even those who are familiar with Asawa are sure to learn more. Obviously a labor of love, the book is true to the spirit of the woman who inspired it."

— Andrea D'Aquino, author of A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa

“A lovingly crafted story about the early, formative years of a great sculptor—covering both the hardships and the joys that helped shape Ruth Asawa into the artist we remember her as today.”

— Melanie Gillman, author of As the Crow Flies

“A beautiful tribute to a groundbreaking artist that highlights the intimate humanity of Asawa’s work. Nakahira’s masterful cartooning takes readers on Asawa’s lifelong journey from a childhood behind barbed wire fences to adulthood transforming wire into art, a parallel impossible to ignore.”

— Kiku Hughes, author of Displacement

Ruth Asawa

An Artist Takes Shape

$19.95/£16.99

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An illustration depicts a young, light-skinned girl seated on her knees while shaping geometric art sculptures. The book title "An Artist Takes Shape" is written in cursive around the sculptures.
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