Betye Saar
Artist
As one of the artists who ushered in the development of Assemblage art, Betye Saar’s practice reflects on African American identity, spirituality and the connectedness between different cultures. Her symbolically rich body of work has evolved over time to demonstrate the environmental, cultural, political, racial, technological, economic, and historical context in which it exists. Her early observance of Simon Rodia’s building methodology in forming the Watts Towers in Los Angeles introduced ideas of how found materials embody both the spiritual and technological. This objective, paired with her personal interest in metaphysics, magic and the occult, formed the origin of Saar’s assemblage works. Subsequent series after her iconic work, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), have sought to reveal marginalized or hidden histories; she has examined the social invisibility of Black Americans in service-oriented jobs, the construction of racial hierarchies based on skin tone within Black communities, and the ways that objects can retain the memories and histories of their owners.
Saar’s work can be found in the permanent collections of more than 60 museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.
Recent exhibitions include “Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight” Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL (October 21, 2021 – March 6, 2022), catalogue, (traveling to the FRAC Lorraine Museum, Metz France, 2022 and Kuntsuseum, Luzerne, Switzerland, 2023); “Betye Saar: Call and Response” Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX (September 25, 2021 – January 2, 2022); “Betye Saar: The Divine Face” Museum Ludwig Köln, Germany (May 2021) as part of the 2020 Wolfgang Hahn Prize; “Legends from Los Angeles: Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar” The Crocker Art Museum (January 24 – July 4, 2021); “Now Is The Time: Recent Acquisitions to the Contemporary Collection” Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (May 2 – July 18, 2021); “Making Time” Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA (May 9 – September 12, 2021); “Betye Saar: Call and Response”, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (September 22, 2019-April 5, 2020), catalogue, (traveled to the Morgan Library, New York, NY; “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” Broad Museum, Los Angeles, CA (March 23 – September 1, 2019), catalogue (traveled from Tate Modern, London, England, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, Brooklyn Museum, Brookly, NY; “Betye Saar: Keepin’ It Clean” New York Historical Society Museum and Library, New York, NY, (November 2, 2018 – March 17, 2019), catalogue. Other recent exhibitions include “Betye Saar: Mojotech” Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland (October 20, 2018 - April 28, 2019); “Outliers and American Vanguard Art” National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, (January 28 – May 13, 2018), catalogue (traveling to the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA); “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965 – 85” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (February 17 – May 27, 2018), catalogue (traveled from Brooklyn Museum, NY, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA).
In October 2019, “Betye Saar: The Legends of Black Girl’s Window” opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition focused on Saar’s rare, early experimental prints from the 1960’s and their deep connection to Black Girl’s Window, 1969.
Saar received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949, with graduate studies at California State University at Long Beach, the University of Southern California and California State University at Northridge. She has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by California College of Arts and Crafts, California Institute of the Arts, Massachusetts College of Art, Otis College of Art & Design, and San Francisco Art Institute.