San Francisco loses a treasure in Ruth Asawa, 87

Ruth Asawa, the artist who died Monday night, might never have become one of America’s most accomplished post-war modernist sculptors had her efforts to become a schoolteacher not been thwarted by anti-Japanese bigotry as a young adult. The daughter of Southern California truck farmers whose many works include the Hyatt fountain on Union Square and Andrea, the mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square, died of natural causes at her San Francisco home. She was 87. Obituaries: LA Times, Chronicle, Mercury News.