Ruth & Albert

For sixty years, Ruth Asawa and Albert Lanier shared many roles in each other’s lives: colleagues at Black Mountain College, creative partners, spouses, and parents to six children. While Asawa’s collaborative spirit within the San Francisco community has been widely acknowledged, her lifelong artistic dialogue with Lanier has received less attention. An architect who, like Asawa, studied under Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller, Lanier made his mark on San Francisco through his building designs, renovations, and preservation efforts. In their everyday life, Asawa captured him in drawings, ceramic masks, and even a puppet, while he created architectural renderings for her public art commissions and museum exhibitions. Together, they worked on wallpaper and fabric designs, their family garden, and countless other creative endeavors that unfolded throughout their lives.

For Asawa and Lanier, art, parenthood, and romance were intertwined. This exhibition brings together previously unexhibited works of art and archival materials, including early letters exchanged between the couple and family photographs. Curated by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander and Albert Harold Lewis, who are themselves creative, professional, and romantic partners, Ruth & Albert reflects Asawa and Lanier’s intimate, collaborative relationship in both content and form.