Art historian Ellen Y. Tani notes, "Saar was one of the only women in the company of [assemblage] artists like George Herms, Ed Kienholz, and Bruce Conner who combined worn, discarded remnants of consumer culture into material meditations on life and death. ", While starting out her artistic career, Saar also developed her own line of greeting cards, and partnered with designer Curtis Tann to make enameled jewelry under the moniker Brown & Tann, which they sold out of Tann's living room. Saar has remarked that, "If you are a mom with three kids, you can't go to a march, but you can make work that deals with your anger. In 1974, following the death of her Aunt Hattie, Saar was compelled to explore autobiography in writing, and enrolled in a workshop titled "Intensive Journal" at the University of California at Los Angeles, which was based off of the psychological theory and method of American psychotherapist Ira Progroff. She is a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Saar continues to live and work in Laurel Canyon on the side of a ravine with platform-like rooms and gardens stacked upon each other. ", A couple years later, she travelled to Haiti. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into statements of political and social protest. Betye Irene Saar (July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California) is an American artist, known for her work in the field of assemblage. She recalls, "I loved making prints. Saar asserted that Walker's art was made "for the amusement and the investment of the white art establishment," and reinforced racism and racist stereotypes of African-Americans. Brown and Tann were featured in the Fall 1951 edition of Ebony magazine. I think in some countries, they probably still make them. Walker had won a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Genius Award that year, and created silhouetted tableaus focused on the issue of slavery, using found images. In 1947 she received her B.A. Saar was a key player in the post-war American legacy of assemblage. I fooled around with all kinds of techniques." It's all together and it's just my work. 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 conttinues to live and work in Los Angeles. I had this vision. However, when she enrolled in an elective printmaking course, she changed focus and decided to pursue a career as an artist. It was as if we were invisible. Her work began with found objects arranged in boxes or windows. She says she was "fascinated by the materials that Simon Rodia used, the broken dishes, sea shells, rusty tools, even corn cobs - all pressed into cement to create spires. Later I realized that of course the figure was myself." Courtesy Sotheby’s. Spending time at her grandmother's house growing up, Saar also found artistic influence in the Watts towers, which were in the process of being built by Outsider artist and Italian immigrant Simon Rodia. See our exhibitions Art historian Ellen Y. Tani explains that, "Assemblage describes the technique of combining natural or manufactured materials with traditionally non-artistic media like found objects into three-dimensional constructions. [...] Her interest in the myriad representations of blackness became a hallmark of her extraordinary career." History and experiences, emotion and knowledge travel across time and back again, linking the artist and viewers of her work with generations of people who came before them. Saar remained in the Laurel Canyon home, where she lives and works to this day. ", Moreover, in regards to her articulation of a visual language of Black identity, Tani notes that "Saar articulated a radically different artistic and revolutionary potential for visual culture and Black Power: rather than produce empowering representations of Black people through heroic or realistic means, she sought to reclaim the power of the derogatory racial stereotype through its material transformation. Saar was a part of the black arts movement in the 1970s, challenging myths and stereotypes. Like them, Saar honors the energy of used objects, but she more specifically crafts racially marked objects and elements of visual culture - namely, black collectibles, or racist tchotchkes - into a personal vocabulary of visual politics. One of her better-known and controversial pieces is that entitled “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. Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California) is an African- American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. And we are so far from that now.". NAVIGATION "Betye Saar Artist Overview and Analysis". Of course, I had learned about Africa at school, but I had never thought of how people there used twigs or leather, unrefined materials, natural materials. "Being from a minority family, I never thought about being an artist. 2201 C Street NW | Washington, DC 20520 Betye Saar, née Betye Irene Brown, (born July 30, 1926, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), American artist and educator, renowned for her assemblages that lampoon racist attitudes about blacks and for installations featuring mystical themes. I said to myself, if Black people only see things like this reproduced, how can they aspire to anything else? This is like the word 'nigger,' you know? ", Saar described Cornell's artworks as "jewel-like installations." Saar is the mother of two artists, Alison Saar and Lezley Saar. [Internet]. There, she was introduced to African and Oceanic art, and was captivated by its ritualistic and spiritual qualities. ", Molesworth continues, asserting that "One of the hallmarks of Saar's work is that she had a sense of herself as both unique - she was an individual artist pursuing her own aims and ideas - and as part of a grand continuum of [...] the nearly 400-year long history of black people in America. Limited-Edition Prints by Leading Artists. After her father's passing, she claims these abilities faded. Follow us on our social channels and learn about what AIE artists and their art are showcasing worldwide. She is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. She has been particularly influential in both of these areas by offering a view of identity that is intersectional, that is, that accounts for various aspects of identity (like race and gender) simultaneously, rather than independently of one another. Art historian Marci Kwon explains that what Saar learned from Cornell was "the use of found objects and the ideas that objects are more than just their material appearances, but have histories and lives and energies and resonances [...] a sense that objects can connect histories. In new boxed assemblages, she combined shamanistic tribal fetishes with images and objects intended to evoke the magical and the mystical. So named in the mid-twentieth century by the French artist Jean Dubuffet, assemblage challenged the conventions of what constituted sculpture and, more broadly, the work of art itself. The following year, she and fellow African-American artist Samella Lewis organized a collective show of Black women artists at Womanspace called Black Mirror. Many of these things were made in Japan, during the '40s. ", In the late 1980s, Saar's work grew larger, often filling entire rooms. 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. STAY CONNECTED In 1952, while still in graduate school, she married Richard Saar, a ceramist from Ohio, and had three daughters: Tracye, Alison, and Lezley. Curator Helen Molesworth argues that Saar was a pioneer in producing images of Black womanhood, and in helping to develop an "African American aesthetic" more broadly, as "In the 1960s and '70s there were very few models of black women artists that Saar could emulate. This is made explicit in her commitment to certain themes, imagery, and objects, and her continual reinvention of them over decades. Although Saar has often objected to being relegated to categorization within Identity Politics such as Feminist art or African-American art, her centrality to both of these movements is undeniable. ", After high school, Saar took art classes at Pasadena City College for two years, before receiving a tuition award for minority students to study at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, she met several other Black women artists (including watercolorist Sue Irons, printmaker Yvonne Cole Meo, painter Suzanne Jackson, and pop artist Eileen Abdulrashid) at Jackson's Gallery 32. In the late 1960s, Saar became interested in the civil rights movement, and she used her art to explore African-American identity and to challenge racism in the art world. Balancing her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and graduate student posed various challenges, and she often had to bring one of her daughters to class with her. Her original aim was to become an interior decorator. In 1997, Saar became involved in a divisive controversy in the art world regarding the use of derogatory racial images, when she spearheaded a letter-writing campaign criticizing African-American artist Kara Walker.

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