The late Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa is best known for abstract wire sculptures inspired by curvaceous natural forms. But she also regularly drew the floral bouquets that family members, friends and acquaintances gave her over the years for Mother's Day and other occasions.

Some of these drawings are currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of a major Asawa retrospective. Asawa died at 87 years old in 2025.

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The truth behind your Valentine's Day flowers

Asawa's bouquets are mostly pencil or black ink drawings on white paper, yet they're incredibly vibrant — so much so, that one of the artist's daughters, Addie Lanier, could conjure the specific colors of many of the blooms pictured in the arrangements at a recent visit to the exhibition.

"The Cecile Brunner rose is a very pale pink," Lanier said, as she gazed at one of her mother's drawings. Her father, the architect Albert Lanier, gave this particular bouquet to Asawa in May 1990 — most likely around Mother's Day. "The teucrium is a feathery gray leaf and then it has little lavender flowers. And I bet these roses were white."

Ruth Asawa's daughter, Addie Lanier, poses with one of her mom's flower drawings at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on April 30. The pictured bouquet was gifted to the artist by Anni Albers in 1990. Chloe Veltman/NPR. Artwork credit: "Untitled"; Private collection; © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo courtesy Christie’s hide caption

toggle caption Chloe Veltman/NPR. Artwork credit: "Untitled"; Private collection; © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo courtesy Christie’s

Asawa had six children, so she got a lot of flowers from themon Mother's Day, too.  "Her table would be like a funeral parlor," Lanier said. "Just really over the top."

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Asawa's green thumb 

Asawa loved plants and was an avid gardener. "When you put a seed in the ground, the ground doesn't say, 'Well, it's eight hours, I'm going to stop growing.' That seed you put in the soil, that bulb grows every second it's attached to earth," the artist said in the 1978 documentary Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growthby Robert Snyder. "That's why I think that every minute that we're attached to this earth, we should be doing something."

Ruth Asawa's children gave her flowers for Mother's Day and other occasions. This image, Valentine Bouquet from Adam (PF.555), was given to the artist by her son Adam in 1991. private collection; © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo: James Paonessa hide caption

toggle caption private collection; © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo: James Paonessa

Lanier said her mother liked to draw floral bouquets, because unlike her abstract artworks, plants are real living things. "The subject was there. She didn't have to invent anything," Lanier said.

Receiving and giving

Asawa loved flowers and received bouquets throughout the year — not just on Mother's Day, and not just from her family. Well-wishers often gave them in gratitude for the artist's community service, such as her long-standing commitment to promoting arts education in San Francisco's public schools.

Years later, with the artist's encouragement, Asawa's children started giving the bouquet drawings back to many of the people who originally gave her the flowers.

"That's the beauty of these drawings," Lanier said. "They're not part of the art market. The exchange is the gift and the friendship. It just happens to be recorded in a drawing."

Portrait of Japanese American sculptor Ruth Asawa as she sketches a design, November 1954. Photo by Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock (12090161c)/Shutterstock Editorial hide caption

toggle caption Photo by Nat Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock (12090161c)/Shutterstock Editorial

Magazine editor Zahid Sardar gave Asawa many bouquets over the years and received a drawing of one of them in 2010.

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"I was touched!" Sardar said of the drawing Asawa's son Paul Lanier gave him a couple of decades after he'd turned up at the artist's house for dinner bearing a bouquet.

Sardar said the drawing is lovely. And most importantly, receiving it so long after he'd given her the real-lifeflowers showed him how much Asawa valued the people in her life. "This was a total surprise," Sardar said. "I had no idea that she drew the first bouquet that I ever gave her."

Ruth Asawa: Retrospectiveis on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through Sept. 2. The exhibition will then travel to The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain; and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland. 

Jennifer Vanasco edited the air and web stories. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.