Public Art and Ruth Asawa
- lesleydlawrence
- Apr 18
- 2 min read
There are so many places to experience great art in San Francisco—murals, gallery windows, pop-up installations, and of course the museums. I recently had the chance to visit SFMOMA (always worth it), and left reminded of something I often tell clients as an appraiser:
Some of the most meaningful art isn’t behind glass or in private collections—it’s outdoors, woven into the daily life of a city.
And for me, San Francisco’s public art conversation always circles back to Ruth Asawa.
Most people know Asawa for her iconic woven wire hanging sculptures, but as an appraiser, I’m continually struck by her range of materials and her ability to create work that is both technically masterful and deeply accessible.
In San Francisco, she was commissioned to create three bronze fountains—major works that sit in public spaces rather than private estates:
*Ghirardelli Square
*Union Square
*Buchanan Mall
Below is Asawa's five-ton Union Square fountain, partly because it reflects what makes outdoor/public art so culturally valuable: it becomes part of a city’s shared identity.
The fountain includes 41 bronze panels depicting scenes of San Francisco, created through an extraordinary collaborative process involving hundreds of schoolchildren, artists, and community members who first sculpted the designs in baker’s clay. The level of detail is remarkable—layered, narrative, and surprisingly intimate for something so monumental.
What many people don’t realize is that authorized appraisers are frequently asked to appraise public art—for insurance coverage, risk management, conservation planning, relocation, deaccessioning, municipal inventories, and even disaster recovery documentation. Public works may be “out in the open,” but establishing credible value still requires careful research, context, and market-supported methodology.
From an appraisal standpoint, works like this are also a reminder that value isn’t only about auction results or provenance files—sometimes it’s about public legacy, permanence, and the imprint an artist leaves on an entire community.
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