Betye Saar

Betye Saar
Born	(1926-07-30) July 30, 1926 Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Education	University of California, Los Angeles, Pasadena City College, California State University, Long Beach
Known for	Assemblage

Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California) is an American artist, known for her work in the field of assemblage. Saar was a part of the black arts movement in the 1970s, challenging myths and stereotypes. In the 1990s, her work was politicized while she continued to challenge the negative ideas of African-Americans. One of her better-known and controversial pieces is titled “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.” It is a “mammy” doll carrying a broom in one hand and a shotgun in the other, and placed in front of the syrup labels. Her work began with found objects arranged in boxes or windows. The items would reflect her mixed ancestry.

Biography

Born Betye Irene Brown, to parents Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson, Saar spent her early years in Los Angeles, spending summers with her paternal grandmother in Watts, California. After her father's death in 1931, Saar, along with her mother and younger brother and sister, moved in with her maternal great-aunt Hattie Parson Keys and her husband Robert Keys in Pasadena, California. Saar's college education began at Pasadena City College and then moved to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1947, where she received a degree in design in 1949. Saar went on to graduate studies, from 1959-1962, completing work at California State University, Long Beach; University of Southern California; and California State University, Northridge.

After graduating in 1949, Saar worked as a social worker in addition to pursuing her interest in art. A partnership with enamel jewelry artist Curtis Tann brought Saar into Tann's circle of black artist friends and patrons. In the course of their business they also entered state fairs and community art competitions, one of which led to Saar meeting her future husband, Richard Saar, whom she married in 1952. Shortly thereafter, she quit her job as a social worker and set up a small home studio, creating enamel jewelry and designing greeting cards. During this period she gave birth to two children, Lezley Sarr in 1953 and Alison Saar in 1956. (Both children grew up to be artists in their own right.) Saar began her graduate education in 1958, originally working towards a career in teaching. However, a printmaking class she took as an elective changed the direction of her artistic interests. Saar credits printmaking as her "segue from design into fine arts."

Her interest in assemblage was inspired by a 1967 exhibition by Joseph Cornell, though she also cites the influence of Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, which she witnessed being built in her childhood. She began creating work typically consisting of found objects arranged within boxes or windows, with items drawing on various cultures reflecting Saar's own mixed ancestry: African-American, Irish, and Native American.

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, by Betye Saar. 1972

In the late 1960s, Saar began collecting images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Little Black Sambo, and other stereotyped African-American figures from folk culture and advertising. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into statements of political and social protest. In the 1970s Saar shifted focus again, exploring ritual and tribal objects from Africa as well as items from African-American folk traditions. In new boxed assemblages, she combined shamanistic tribal fetishes with images and objects intended to evoke the magical and the mystical.

When her great-aunt died, Saar became immersed in family memorabilia and began making more personal and intimate assemblages that incorporated nostalgic mementos of her great-aunt’s life. She arranged old photographs, letters, lockets, dried flowers, and handkerchiefs in shrinelike boxes to suggest memory, loss, and the passage of time.

In the early 1980s, Saar taught in Los Angeles at the University of California and the Otis Art Institute now called Otis College of Art and Design. In her own work she began using a larger, room-size scale, creating site-specific installations, including altar-like shrines exploring the relationship between technology and spirituality, and incorporating her interests in mysticism and Voodoo. Pairing computer chips with mystical amulets and charms, these monumental constructions suggested the need for an alliance of both systems of knowledge: the technical and the spiritual.

Betye Saar continues to live and work in Los Angeles. 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 and Design, and San Francisco Art Institute.

Selected solo exhibitions

• 2016 Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
• 2015 Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands
• 2014 Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California
• 2006 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
• 2000 Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York City, New York.
• 1999 The University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado and The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan.
• 1998 Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, New York and Jan Baum Gallery, Los Angeles, California and California African-American Museum, Los Angeles, California.
• 1997 Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington.
• 1996 Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa and The Palmer Museum of Art, Penn State College, Pennsylvania and de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, California and Joselyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.
• 1994 Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, California.
• 1993 Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California.
• 1992 The Ritual Journey. Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford, Connecticut.
• 1991 Objects Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
• 1990 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California.
• 1989 Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand and Art space, Auckland, New Zealand
• 1988 Taichung Museum of Art, Taichung, Taiwan.
• 1987 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1984 MOCalifornia, Los Angeles, California and Georgia State University Art Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1983 Woman’s Art Movement, Adelaide, Australia and Canberra School of Art, Canberra Connecticut, Australia.
• 1982 Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California.
• 1981 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
• 1980 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York.
• 1979 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
• 1977 Baun-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California.
• 1976 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
• 1975 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.
• 1973 California State University, Los Angeles, California.

Awards and honors

• 2014 Edward MacDowell Medal
• 1997 The Visual Artists Award, The Flintridge Foundation, Pasadena, California.
• 1995 Honorary Doctorate Degrees: California Institute of the Arts and Massachusetts College of Art
• 1993 Distinguished Artist Award, Fresno Art Museum
• 1992 James Van Der Zee Award, Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1992 Honorary Doctorate Degrees: Otis College of Art and Design and San Francisco Art Institute
• 1991 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
• 1991 Honorary Doctorate Degree: California College of the Arts
• 1990 J. Paul Getty Fund for the Visual Arts Fellowship.
• 1990 22nd Annual Artist Award, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
• 1984 and 1974 National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship

Selected collections

• Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
• Kresge Art Museum State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.
• Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Museum of Art, Utica, New York.
• National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
• The New Jersey State Museum, Newark, New Jersey.
• The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.
• The Oakland Museum, Oakland, California.
• The Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
• The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California.
• Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts.
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York.
• Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington.
• University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California.
• University of Massachusetts, Herter Art Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts.
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.

Selected bibliography

• Paysour, F. "Wonders of the House of Saar." International Review of African American Art vol. 20, no. 3 (2005), pp. 51–3
• Willette, J. S. M. "Stitching Lives: Fabric in the Art of Betye Saar." Fiberarts vol. 23 (March/April 1997), pp. 44–81
• Van Proyen, M. "A Conversation with Betye and Alison Saar" [interview]. Artweek v. 22 (August 15, 1991) pp. 3+
• Etra, J. "Family Ties." ARTnews vol. 90 (May 1991), pp. 128–33.
• Saar, Betye, et al. 2005. Betye Saar: extending the frozen moment. Ann Arbor; Berkeley: University of Michigan Museum of Art; University of California Press. ISBN 0520246624.
• Saar, Betye [entry in] Women artists of color: a bio-critical sourcebook to 20th century artists in the Americas. Phoebe Farris, ed. Westport, Connecticut: 1999. Pages 333-339. Entry includes biography, selected exhibitions, 41-item bibliography, and biographical essay. ISBN 0313303746.
• Jones, Kellie et al. Now dig this! : art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980. 2011 Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2011. ISBN 9783791351360.

Film and video

• Betye and Alison Saar [videorecording]: Conjure Women of the Arts. by Linda Freeman and David Irving. c. 1996, 28 minutes, Color. Chappaqua, New York: L & S Video.

External links

• Betye Saar's website
• Betye Saar at Roberts & Tilton
• Betye Saar Catalogue Raisonne Project
• Betye Saar interviews and biographical information
• Betye Saar in 'Voices and Images of California Art'
• Betye Saar's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Betye Saar at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
• 2004 CWA Annual Recognition Awards
• The Ordinary Becomes Mystical: A Conversation with Betye Saar, Juvenio L. Guerra, January 4, 2012
• Discussion of "Biddy Mason's Place: A Passage of Time", a 1989 public artwork in Los Angeles, created with Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.