Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is a

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the

African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

and black female identity and is influenced by

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

, and

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...

folk art and spirituality. Saar is well known for "transforming found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion."

Early life and education

Saar was born in

, to a well-known

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

sculptor and installation artist,

Betye Saar Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926) is an African-American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, which eng ...

, and Richard Saar, a ceramicist and art conservator.Clark, Erin. "Alison Saar." ''Artworks'' Winter (2008): 33-40. Print. Saar's mother Betye was involved in the 1970s Black Arts Movement and frequently took Alison and her sisters, Lezley and Tracye, to museums and art openings during their childhood. They also saw Outsider Art, such as

Simon Rodia The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

Watts Towers The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

in Los Angeles and Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley. Saar's love of nature, intense interest in vernacular folk art and admiration of artists' ability to create beauty through the use of discarded items stemmed from her upbringing and exposure to these experiences and types of art. Alison worked with her father as a conservator for eight years, starting while she was still in high school. This is where she learned to carve, and she notes that it later influenced the materials she would use in her pieces. Dealing with artifacts from different culturesChinese frescoes,

Egyptian mummies The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods ...

, and

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

and

African art African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, su ...

taught Alison about properties of various materials, techniques, and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

. Saar received a dual degree in art history and studio art from

Scripps College Scripps College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Claremont, California. It was founded as a member of the Claremont Colleges in 1 ...

(Claremont, CA) in 1978, having studied with Dr.

Samella Lewis Samella Sanders Lewis (February 27, 1923 – May 27, 2022) was an American visual artist and art historian. She worked primarily as a printmaker and painter. She has been called the "Godmother of African American Art". She received Distinguished ...

. Her thesis focused on African-American folk art.Wilson, Judith. "Down to the Crossroads: The Art of Alison Saar." Callaloo 14.1 (1991): 107-23. Web

She received an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA) in 1981. In addition to their distinguished separate careers Saar and her mother Betye Saar have produced artworks together. From her mother Alison "inherited a fascination with mysticism, found objects, and the spiritual potential of art."

Work

Saar is skilled in numerous artistic mediums, including metal sculpture, wood, fresco, woodblock print, and works using found objects. Her sculptures and installations explore themes of African cultural diaspora and spirituality. Her work is often autobiographical and often acknowledges the historical role of the body as a marker of identity, and the body's connection to contemporary identity politics. ''Snake Man'', in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of how the artist references both African culture and the human body in her work. The artist's multiethnic upbringing, multiracial identity and her studies of Latin American, Caribbean and African art and religion have informed her work. Her highly personal, often life-sized sculptures are marked by their emotional candor, and by contrasting materials and messages she imbues her work with a high degree of cultural subtext. Her sculptures represent issues relating to gender and race through both her personal experience and historical context. Saar investigates practices of

Candomblé Candomblé () is an African diasporic religion that developed in Brazil during the 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between several of the traditional religions of West Africa, especially that of the Yoruba, and the Roman ...

Santería Santería (), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diaspora religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the tradit ...

, and Hoodoo. Believing that objects contain spirits, she transforms familiar found objects to stir human emotions. In a review of the Whitney Biennial, ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' art critic Roberta Smith said that Saar's work was among the "few instances where the political and visual join forces with real effectiveness." Of Saar's 2006 exhibitio
''Coup''
critic Rebecca Epstein wrote, “

aar AAR or Aar may refer to: Geography * Aar, a river in Switzerland, tributary of the Rhine *Aar (Lahn), a tributary of Lahn river in Germany, descending from the Taunus mountains * Aar (Dill), a tributary of Dill river in Germany, also in the bas ...

demonstrates deft skill with seemingly unforgiving materials (bronze, lead, tar, wood). hejuggles themes of personal and cultural identity as she fashions various sizes of female bodies (often her own) that are buoyant with story while solid in stance.”

Exhibitions

Saar's work has been exhibited in museums, biennials, galleries, and public art venues. Saar's work has been exhibited internationally with key exhibitions at the

UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History The Fowler Museum at UCLA, commonly known as The Fowler, and formerly Museum of Cultural History and Fowler Museum of Cultural History, is a museum on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) which explores art and material ...

, L.A. Louver Gallery,

Phyllis Kind Gallery Phyllis Barbara Kind ( Cobin; 1933–2018) was an American art dealer active in Chicago and New York. She promoted the work of the Chicago Imagists and outsider artists. Early life and family Phyllis Kind was born Phyllis Barbara Cobin in The B ...

in New York City, Ben Maltz Gallery, and Pasadena Museum of California Art. She was an artist-in-residence at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

and at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her solo institutional exhibitions include: ''Alison Saar: Bearing'' at the

Museum of the African Diaspora The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Locate ...

in 2015-16; ''Winter'' at The Fields Sculpture Park,

Omi International Arts Center Art Omi, formerly Omi International Arts Center, is a non-profit international arts organization located in Columbia County in Ghent, New York. The organization provides residencies for writers, artists, architects, musicians, dancers and chor ...

in 2014-15; ''Hothouse'' at the Watts Towers Art Center in 2014-15; and ''STILL...'' that opened at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design in 2012 and traveled to the

Figge Art Museum The Figge Art Museum is an art museum in Davenport, Iowa. The Figge, as it is commonly known, has an encyclopedic collection and serves as the major art museum for the eastern Iowa and western Illinois region. The Figge works closely with sever ...

, Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013. Significant group exhibitions include: ''In Profile: Portraits from the Permanent Collection'' at

The Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

in 2015; ''African American Art since 1950:'' ''Perspectives from the David C. Driskell Center'', a traveling exhibition and catalogue that was presented at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in 2012,

Taft Museum of Art The Taft Museum of Art is a fine art collection in Cincinnati, Ohio. It occupies the 200-year-old historic house at 316 Pike Street. The house – the oldest domestic wooden structure in downtown Cincinnati – was built about 1820 and housed ...

in 2013,

Harvey B. Gantt Center The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, formerly known as the Afro-American Cultural Center, is in Charlotte, North Carolina and named for Harvey Gantt, the city's first African-American mayor and the first African-American ...

in 2014,

in 2014-15,

Polk Museum of Art The Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College is a private, non-profit, and nationally accredited art museum in Lakeland, Florida. It is a member of the Florida Association of Museums, is ranked among the top art museums in the state of Flori ...

in 2015, and Sheldon Museum of Art in 2016. ''Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000'' a large survey exhibition and catalogue produced

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

in 2000; ''Twentieth Century American Sculpture in the White House Garden'' at

The White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

, Washington, D.C., in 1995; and "Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection" at the

Muscarelle Museum of Art The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portr ...

in Williamsburg, Virginia in 2018. In 2021, Saar curated ''SeenUNseen'' at L.A. Louver which coincided with a reading by

Myriam J. A. Chancy Myriam J. A. Chancy (born 1970) is a Haitian-Canadian-American writer and a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. , she is the Hartley Burr Alexander Chair of Humanities at Scripps College of the Claremont Consortium. As a wri ...

. Saar's work ''Hi, Yella'' was included in the 1993

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

held at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, a benchmark in American exhibitions for its critical tone and content. In 2021, the

Benton Museum of Art The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery which had been home to the Pomona College ...

and

Armory Center for the Arts The Armory Center for the Arts, also known as the Armory, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit visual arts organization located in Pasadena, California. The Armory provides community arts education programs for all ages and exhibitions of contemporary art, mo ...

surveyed her work in a joint exhibition titled "Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe". Saar is represented by L.A. Louver in Venice, California.

Awards

* 1984: Artist Fellowship,

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

; Artist in Residence,

, New York City, New York * 1985: Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Artist in Residence, Roswell Museum of Art, Roswell, N.M; Artist, Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts * 1986: Artist in Residence, November, Washington Project for the Arts * 1988: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts * 1989:

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

from the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

* 1998: Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, New Orleans, LA * 1998: Augustus St. Gaudens Memorial Foundation, Cornish, NH * 1999: Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA * 2000: Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Arts, Pasadena, CA * 2003: Distinguished Alumna Award,

, Claremont, CA; Artist in residence,

Hopkins Center Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College is located at 4 East Wheelock Street in Hanover, New Hampshire. The center, which was designed by Wallace Harrison and foreshadows his later design of Manhattan's Lincoln Center, is the college's cu ...

, Hanover, New Hampshire * 2004: Received the COLA Grant, Los Angeles, CA * 2005: Excellence in Design Award by the

New York City Art Commission The New York City Public Design Commission, known legally as the Art Commission, is the agency of the New York City government that reviews permanent works of architecture, landscape architecture, and art proposed on or over city-owned property. T ...

, New York City, New York * 2012: Fellow of United States Artists. * 2013:

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

, New York * City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Artist Fellowship

Collections

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York * Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN *

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

, TX *

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Brooklyn, NY

Publications

* Shepherd, Elizabeth. ''Secrets, Dialogues,'' ''Revelations: The Art of Betye and Alison Saar''. Los Angeles, CA: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, 1990. * Wilson, Judith. "Down to the Crossroads: The Art of Alison Saar." In ''Callaloo'' 14 no 1 (Winter 1991): 107–123. * Krane, Susan. ''Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground'', Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 1993. * Nooter Roberts, Mary, and Alison Saar. ''Body Politics:The Female Image in Luba Art and the Sculpture of Alison Saar''. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2000. * McGee, Julie L. "Field, Boll, and Monument: Toward an Iconography of Cotton in African American Art." In ''International Review of African American Art'' 19 no. 1 (2003): 37–48. * Lewis, Samella S. African American Art and Artists, revised and expanded 3rd ed., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. * Farrington, Lisa E. "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude." In ''Woman's Art Journal'' 24 no. 2 (Autumn 2003–Winter 2004): 15–23. * Dallow, Jessica. "Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood." ''Feminist Studies'' 30 no. 1 (2004): 75–113. * Dallow, Jessica. ''Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar''. Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with University of Washington Press, 2005. * Jones, Leisha. "Women and Abjection: Margins of Difference, Bodies of Art." ''Visual Culture & Gender'' 2 (2007): 62–71. * Linton, Meg. ''Alison Saar: STILL ...''. Los Angeles, CA: Otis College of Art and Design, Ben Maltz Gallery, 2012. * Dallow, Jessica. "Departures and Returns: Figuring the Mother's Body in the Art of Betye and Alison Saar." ''Reconciling Art and Mothering, edited by Rachel Epp Buller''. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012.

References

External links

L.A. Louver Gallery

New York Foundation for the Arts: Interview with Alison Saar

2009 Half-Hour TV Interview on The Creative Community

KCRW Art Talk with Edward Goldman
"The Painful Beauty of Alison Saar's Stories," 2012

at Phyllis Kind Gallery (NYC) web site {{DEFAULTSORT:Saar, Alison 1956 births Living people 20th-century American women artists African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists American women installation artists American women printmakers American women sculptors Sculptors from California American installation artists Otis College of Art and Design alumni Scripps College alumni 21st-century American women artists African-American sculptors African-American printmakers