Bettye Saar

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Betye Saar was born in Los Angeles in 1926. As a child, she watched the progress of Simon Rodia’s monumental Watts Towers, which fueled her lifelong interest in the use of discarded and recycled materials. Saar studied art at the University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated in 1949. She then took classes in graphic design and printmaking at California State University, Long Beach, from 1958 to 1962. It was during this time that she first saw the boxed assemblages of the artist Joseph Cornell, who became another profound influence.

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 provocative 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 evoking 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. 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. 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.

Saar continues to live and work in Los Angeles.