Ruth Asawa’s Initial Exclusive Location Scheduled to Launch This Spring

Asawa at her individual exhibition at the San Francisco Arts Commission Capricorn Asunder gallery, CA, 1976. (Photo by Bruce Sherman, artwork © 2026 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. Courtesy of David Zwirner)

It has already been a remarkable year for the late artist Ruth Asawa. In March, her significant retrospective opened at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, after highly successful exhibitions at both MoMA in New York and SFMOMA in the Bay Area. This momentum, however, is just beginning. On May 9, 2026, the family-operated Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. (RAL Inc.) will unveil the first permanent venue devoted to the groundbreaking modernist, while also commemorating the 100th anniversary of her birth in 1926.

The 1,714-square-foot gallery will be located at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco’s Dogpatch district. Launching the venue will be Ruth Asawa: Untitled, an exhibition co-curated by the artist’s daughters, Aiko Cuneo and Addie Lanier, and whose title cleverly references Asawa’s tendency to leave her works unnamed. Like her retrospective, Untitled will provide a comprehensive view of the artist’s multidisciplinary practice, featuring everything from seldom-seen looped- and tied-wire sculptures to cast artworks, paperfolds, watercolors, and drawings. Future exhibitions will also highlight Asawa’s lesser-known and previously unseen pieces, alongside works by her friends and mentors, including Josef and Anni Albers, Imogen Cunningham, and Ray Johnson, among others.

In addition to its unprecedented exhibition program, the venue’s specific location holds significance. Asawa spent over sixty years in San Francisco, cultivating a strong relationship with the city’s art community. The artist has numerous permanent installations throughout the Bay Area: Andrea in Ghiradelli Square, San Francisco Fountain near Union Square, and a wire sculpture in the de Young Museum’s tower, to highlight just a few. This new gallery intends to showcase the artist’s profound influence on the local scene and beyond, emphasizing how she interacted with her environment and how that influenced her creative practice.

“San Francisco was Asawa’s home for more than 60 years, during which time she developed a unique artistic language, raised her family, and became a prominent advocate for the arts and art education both locally and nationally,” Henry Weverka, the artist’s grandson and president of RAL Inc., shared with the San Francisco Chronicle. “Establishing a permanent space here in her chosen hometown feels like a wonderful way to honor her centennial for many years to come.”

Asawa, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 87, is best recognized for her looped-wire sculptures, many of which feature organic and natural themes. She first perfected her signature technique for looping wire while studying at Black Mountain College near Asheville, N.C., following World War II. In 2024, she received the National Medal of the Arts posthumously from former President Joe Biden. Her ongoing retrospective will be displayed at the Guggenheim in Bilbao until September 13, 2026, after which it will move to Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland.

“Throughout over 50 tours of the Retrospective at SFMOMA, the most common question I faced was, ‘What was it like to grow up with Ruth Asawa as your grandmother?’” Weverka remarked. “I hope the personal exhibitions at our new Minnesota Street Project venue offer visitors insight into who she was as an artist, mother, grandmother, and arts advocate.”

For updates regarding the new space and its forthcoming exhibitions, visit Ruth Asawa’s website.

Ruth Asawa’s family-operated foundation will inaugurate the first permanent gallery exclusively dedicated to the late artist, who is most famous for her looped-wire sculptures.

Located in San Francisco’s Dogpatch district, the gallery will launch with an exhibition on May 9, 2026, providing visitors with an intimate view of Asawa’s iconic practice.

Exhibition Information:
Ruth Asawa
Ruth Asawa: Untitled
May 9, 2026–June 20, 2026
Minnesota Street Project
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, U.S.A.

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