Untitled (S.402, Hanging Two Interlocked Spheres, Each Containing One Sphere that Interlocks with an Outer Half-Sphere Form)

Intricately woven by hand in Ruth Asawa’s signature style, Untitled (S.402) is an historic work, impressive in its dynamic form with its multilayered and interlocking composition. At once delicate and visually arresting, this striking hanging sculpture was created in 1954, five years after the artist had left North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, where she studied closely under Josef Albers and other greats, to settle in San Francisco. Untitled (S.402) serves as an eloquent marker of a pivotal point in the artist’s career, in which Asawa’s dedicated exploration of hand-woven wire was presented to the New York art scene in her first solo exhibition at Peridot Gallery. New York became a haven for her work at the earliest stages of her career, and San Francisco would become her lifelong home and a place she would help to influence and reshape artistically and politically for over five decades. It was in San Francisco where Asawa and Dr. Gaylord Hall, a professor of dentistry and accomplished ceramicist, would become dear friends amidst the burgeoning artistic community in the Bay Area, and so began his longstanding patronage of her work. Elegantly hanging over Asawa in of the most iconic images of the artist, Untitled (S.402) is indelibly ingrained in our memory of the artist and her legacy, and perfectly embodies Asawa’s meticulous and disciplined process as one of labor, memory, and love.