A richly illustrated history of self-taught artists and how they changed American art Artists without formal training, who learned from family, community, and personal journeys, have long been a presence in American art. But it wasn’t until the 1980s, with the help of trailblazing advocates, that the collective force of their creative vision and bold self-definition permanently changed the mainstream art world. In We Are Made of Stories, Leslie Umberger traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, they redefined who could be rightfully seen as an artist and revealed a much more diverse community of American makers. Lavishly illustrated throughout, We Are Made of Stories features more than one hundred drawings, paintings, and sculptures, ranging from the narrative to the abstract, by forty-three artists—including James Castle, Thornton Dial, William Edmondson, Howard Finster, Bessie Harvey, Dan Miller, Sister Gertrude Morgan, the Philadelphia Wireman, Nellie Mae Rowe, Judith Scott, and Bill Traylor. The book centralizes the personal stories behind the art, and explores enduring themes, including self-definition, cultural heritage, struggle and joy, and inequity and achievement. At the same time, it offers a sweeping history of self-taught artists, the critical debates surrounding their art, and how museums have gradually diversified their collections across lines of race, gender, class, and ability. Recasting American art history to embrace artists who have been excluded for too long, We Are Made of Stories vividly captures the power of art to show us the world through the eyes of another. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum Exhibition Schedule Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC July 1, 2022–March 26, 2023

Known for her extensive body of intricate and dynamic wire sculptures, American sculptor, educator, and arts activist Ruth Asawa challenged conventional notions of material and form through her emphasis on lightness and transparency. Asawa began her now iconic looped-wire works in the late 1940s while still a student at Black Mountain College. Their unique structure was inspired by a 1947 trip to Mexico, during which local craftsmen taught her how to create baskets out of wire. While seemingly unrelated to the lessons of color and composition taught in Josef Albers’s legendary Basic Design course, these works, as she explained, are firmly grounded in his teachings in their use of unexpected materials and their elision of figure and ground. Presenting an important and timely overview of the artist’s work, this monograph brings together a broad selection of her sculptures, works on paper, and more. Together the body of work demonstrates the centrality of Asawa’s innovative practice to the art-historical legacy of the twentieth century. In addition to an incredible group of photographs of the artist and her work by Imogen Cunningham, a selection of rare archival materials will illustrate a chronology of the artist’s life and work. Featuring an extensive text by Tiffany Bell which explores the artist’s influences, history, and, most importantly, the work itself, as well as a significant essay by Robert Storr discussing Asawa’s work in relation to mid-twentieth century art history, culture, and scientific theory.

Bringing together works from across Asawa's career, this expansive and beautifully illustrated volume examines her output both as an artist and as a passionate advocate for arts education.

An expanded edition of the definitive book on Ruth Asawa’s fascinating life and her lasting contributions to American art. The work of American artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) is brought into brilliant focus in this definitive book, originally published to accompany the first complete retrospective of Asawa’s career, organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2006. This new edition features an expanded collection of essays and a detailed illustrated chronology that explore Asawa's fascinating life and her lasting contributions to American art. Beginning with her earliest works—drawings and paintings created in the 1940s while she was studying at Black Mountain College—this beautiful volume traces Asawa’s flourishing career in San Francisco and her trajectory as a pioneering modernist sculptor who is recognized internationally for her innovative wire sculptures, public commissions, and activism on behalf of public arts education. Through her lifelong experimentations with wire, especially its capacity to balance open and closed forms, Asawa invented a powerful vocabulary that contributed a unique perspective to the field of twentieth-century abstract sculpture. Working in a variety of nontraditional media, Asawa performed a series of remarkable metamorphoses, leading viewers into a deeper awareness of natural forms by revealing their structural properties. Through her art, Asawa transfigured the commonplace into metaphors for life processes themselves. The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa establishes the importance of Asawa’s work within a larger cultural context of artists who redefined art as a way of thinking and acting in the world, rather than as merely a stylistic practice. This updated edition includes a new introduction and more than fifty new images, as well as original essays that reflect on the impact of American political history on Asawa's artistic vision, her experience with printmaking, and her friendship with photographer Imogen Cunningham. Contributors include Susan Ehrens, Mary Emma Harris, Karin Higa, Jacqueline Hoefer, Emily K. Doman Jennings, Paul J. Karlstrom, John Kreidler, Susan Stauter, Colleen Terry, and Sally B. Woodbridge. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF).

Exploring ties of life in story and experience, Bullhorn High Wire winds its poems with varying rhythm and structure, unhindered or refined for natural need, to capture moment and expectation. The poems elevate conversation into higher realms of hope and purpose like highlighting the wonder of the bedtime routines of the author’s children and witnessing the beauty and grace of growing up on the high plains. Bullhorn High Wire celebrates poetry and invites readers to have fun with it, especially if you think you don’t like poetry. The poems are accessible and dense with deeper meaning and often echo the wisdom of great voices while beckoning to true importance. In dealing with abstract themes, many of the poems employ narrative vision to highlight nature and structure in metaphor for the intangible. The throughline of it all is the author’s faith.

A fascinating glimpse into the creative process of a major contemporary sculptor, featuring many previously unseen works on paper American sculptor Martin Puryear (b. 1941) creates work that combines the clean elegance of minimalism and the simplicity of traditional materials. His stunning sculptures explore themes of identity, ethnicity, and history, and are rich with social and cultural commentary. Puryear, who is known for abstract, large-scale pieces in wood, stone, and bronze, has captured the attention of the art world for the past 30 years. Despite the apparent simplicity of his works, however, he engages in an extensive iterative process that has, until now, been unknown. Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions explores that process, featuring numerous drawings, prints, and small-scale sculptures that have never before been published. This catalogue is the first to examine Puryear's work across media, providing invaluable insight into his visual thinking, from sketches to working drawings and constructions for sculpture. Handsomely illustrated with nearly 120 color plates that demonstrate the evolution of Puryear's ideas between drawings, prints, and sculptures, this beautiful volume draws back the curtain on the methodology of this important and enigmatic artist.