Betye Saar

**Betye Irene Saar** (bɛ daa dɔɣi o la silimiin July biɛɣ'pihita dali yuuni 1926) nyɛla Americanima nucheeni baŋda ka niriba pam mi o ka di nyɛla tun'shɛŋa o ni tumassemblage zuɣu. Saar nyɛla lihigu lahabalitira n-ti pahi "printmaker". Saar nyɛla ŋun daa be Black Arts Movement yuuni 1970s. O tuma nyɛla din jandi siyaasa tali dama o nyɛla ŋun tooi ŋmɛri African Americanima tuma din be chaŋ viɛnyɛla nangbankpeeni ; Saar nyɛla niriba pam ni mi so ka di nyɛla kpaŋmaŋ shɛli o ni daa niŋ anti-Black racism din be United States zuɣu.

## Piligu biɛhigu, shikuru baŋsim n-ti pahi
Betye Saar nyɛla bɛ ni daa dɔɣi so ka boli o Betye Irene Brown silimiin goli July biɛɣ'pihita dali yuuni 1926, o lammba nyɛ Jefferson Maze Brown mini Beatrice Lillian Parson ka bɛ be Los Angeles, California. O lammba maa zaa nyɛla ban chaŋ University of California, Los Angeles, ni ka bɛ daa nya taba. Saar nyɛla ŋun daa be   Los Angeles o bilim saha. Din daa niŋ ka o ba kpi nyaaŋa yuuni 1931, Saar mini o ma, tizodoo n-ti pahi tizopaɣa nyɛla ban daa labi o ba ma Irene Hannah Maze sani Watts neighborhood din be Los Angeles. Daŋ maa daa lahi labi Pasadena, California n-ti be Saar's ma tizopaɣa Hatte Parson Keys mini o yidana Robert E. Keys sani.

O ni daa zoorina, Saar nyɛla ŋun daa maani binshɛŋa din saɣim. O collagɛ shikuru nyɛla din daa piligi Pasadena City College ka daa tuɣi o bɔhimbu University of California, Los Angeles din daa niŋ ka o deegi "tuition award" nyaaŋa. Saar daa nya B.A. in design yuuni 1947. O daa lahi chaŋ California State University, Long Beach, University of Southern California, California State University, Northridge n-ti pahi American Film Institute. O nyɛla ŋun daa kuli Richard Saar ka bɛ daa dɔɣi bi'puɣiŋsi ata: Tracye, Alison n-ti pahi Lezley.

## Artistic career

### Early work
Saar nyɛla ŋun daa piligi o zaɣ'kuritali tali tuma ni niriba biɛhisuŋ wuhibu pɔi ka daa bɔhim nucheeni baŋsim. 

## Solo exhibitions

* 1973 California State University, Los Angeles, California.
* 1975 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.
* 1976 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
* 1977 Baun-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California.
* 1979 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
* 1980 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York.
* 1981 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
* 1982 Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California.
* 1983 Women's Art Movement, Adelaide, Australia and Canberra School of Art, Canberra Connecticut, Australia.
* 1984 California, Los Angeles, California and Georgia State University Art Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.
* 1987 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
* 1988 Taichung Museum of Art, Taichung, Taiwan.
* 1989 City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand and Art space, Auckland, New Zealand
* 1990 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California.
* 1991 Objects Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
* 1992 The Ritual Journey. Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford, Connecticut.
* 1993 Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California.
* 1994 Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, California.
* 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 Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.
* 1997 Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington.
* 1998 Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, New York and Jan Baum Gallery, Los Angeles, California and California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California.
* 1999 University of New Mexico Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado and The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan.
* 2000 Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York City, New York.
* 2002 Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Princeton, NJ
* 2005 University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan
* 2006 Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
* 2014 Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California
* 2016 Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
* 2016 Fondazione Prada, Milan Italy
* 2016 Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California
* 2017 Craft and Folk Art Museum (now Craft Contemporary), Los Angeles
* 2018 Roberts Projects, Culver City, California
* 2019 New York Historical Society, New York, NY
* 2019 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
* 2019 LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
* 2020 Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY
* 2021 Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX
* 2022 Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL

## Awards and honors

* 1984 and 1974: National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship
* 1990: 22nd Annual Artist Award, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
* 1990: J. Paul Getty Fund for the Visual Arts Fellowship
* 1991: Honorary Doctorate Degree: California College of the Arts
* 1991: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
* 1992: Honorary Doctorate Degrees: Otis College of Art and Design and San Francisco Art Institute
* 1992: James Van Der Zee Award, Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 1993: Distinguished Artist Award, Fresno Art Museum
* 1995: Honorary Doctorate Degrees: California Institute of the Arts and Massachusetts College of Art
* 1997: The Visual Artists Award, The Flintridge Foundation, Pasadena, California
* 2014: Edward MacDowell Medal
* 2020: Wolfgang-Hahn-Preis Köln

## Notable works in public collections
**Aries Nymph* (1966), University Museum of Contemporary Art, Amherst, Massachusetts
**A Siege of Sirens* (1966), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Museum of Modern Art, New York
**Vision of El Cremo* (1967), Palmer Museum of Art, State College, Pennsylvania
**Black Girl's Window* (1969), Museum of Modern Art, New York
**Gris-Gris Box* (1972), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
**The Liberation of Aunt Jemima* (1972), Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California
**It's Only A Matter of Time* (1974), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
**The Time Inbetween* (1974), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
**Indigo Mercy* (1975), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
**The Birds and The Beasts Were There* (1976), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
**Dark Erotic Dream* (1976), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
**Keep for Old Memoirs* (1976), Museum of Modern Art, New York
**Samadhi* (1977), High Museum of Art, Atlanta
**Twilight Awakening* (1978), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
**Window of Ancient Sirens* (1979), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
**Dat Ol' Black Magic* (1981), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
**Ball of Fire* (1985), Philadelphia Museum of Art
**Cryptic Confessions, The Question* (1988), Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida
**The Differences Between* (1989), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
**House of Ancient Memory* (1989), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
**La Luz* (1989), Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York
**Wishing for Winter* (1989), Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
**Ancestral Spirit Chair* (1992), Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
**Gris Gris Guardian* (1990-1993), Los Angeles County Museum of Art
**The Trickster* (1994), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
**Whitey's Way* (1970-1996), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
**Blow Top Blues: The Fire Next Time* (1998), Minneapolis Institute of Art and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
**I'll Bend But I Will Not Break* (1998), Los Angeles County Museum of Art
**The Long Memory* (1998), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
**Maid-Rite (Mask Eyes)* (1998), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
**Mother and Children in Blue* (1998), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
**Wot's Dat* (1998) from the series *Workers + Warriors: The Return of Aunt Jemima*, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York

## Kundivihira

## Further reading
* Paysour, Fleur. "Wonders of the House of Saar." *International Review of African American* Art vol. 20, no. 3 (2005), pp.&nbsp;51–3
* Willette, Jeanne S. M. "Stitching Lives: Fabric in the Art of Betye Saar." *Fiberarts* vol. 23 (March/April 1997), pp.&nbsp;44–81
* Van Proyen, M. "A Conversation with Betye and Alison Saar" [interview]. *Artweek* v. 22 (August 15, 1991) pp.&nbsp;3+
* Etra, John. "Family Ties." *ARTnews* vol. 90 (May 1991), pp.&nbsp;128–33.
* 
* Farris, Phoebe. "Saar, Betye" [entry in] *Women Artists of Color: A Biocritical Sourcebook to 20th Century Artists in the Americas*. Phoebe Farris, ed. Westport, Connecticut: 1999. pp. 333–339. Entry includes biography, selected exhibitions, 41-item bibliography, and biographical essay.  
*Jones, Kellie et al. Now dig this! : art & Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980. 2011. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, 2011.  
* Jones, Kellie. *South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s*. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
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## External links

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* Betye Saar at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA