Ruth Asawa: The Tamarind Prints

Over the course of just two months in 1965, at a residency at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, the Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa produced a stunning portfolio of 54 lithographs, depicting organic forms and plants as well as family and friends. The Tamarind Workshop had been founded by artist June Wayne in Los Angeles in 1960 in an effort to revitalize lithography as a fine art, and offered artists the opportunity to work in collaboration with master printers. For Asawa, it was a rare chance to focus on a single medium and opened up a new chapter of artmaking for her. A testament to Asawa’s radically experimental and collaborative ethos, the Tamarind prints present a discrete chapter of her oeuvre, encapsulating many of the artist’s emblematic motifs. Published in celebration of the artist’s centennial in 2026, this exquisitely produced book illustrates each lithograph made during her residency at the Tamarind Workshop, which have never been published as a complete series.