Betye Saar: Vitreous Painting on Glass

Betye Saar, vitreous painting on glass, 8 x 10”

Betye Saar was born July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. Saar's artwork addressed American racism and stereotypes head on, typically of the assemblage format. One of her more famous works, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, confronted the myths and prejudice of the syrup bottle.

American artist and educator, is renowned for her assemblages that lampoon racist attitudes about blacks and for installations featuring mystical themes. Saar studied design at the University of California at Los Angeles (B.A., 1949) and education and printmaking at California State University at Long Beach. In the early 1960s she created etchings and intaglio, but after seeing a Joseph Cornell show in 1968, she developed an interest in three-dimensional objects and began working in assemblage. Her works incorporate found objects of all sorts—from those suggesting ritual folk cult to traditional Christianity. Many also challenge racist myths and stereotypes. Saar's The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), for example, is a “mammy” doll placed in front of the eponymous pancake syrup labels; she carries a broom in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Saar created less political works during that period as well, evocatively employing such materials as old photographs, gloves, and dried flower petals.

Saar's works expanded in size and scope from the late 1970s. Her room-size installations sometimes included shrines, and she invited viewer interaction by encouraging viewers to contribute objects to the work, a practice common in African cultures. She also reiterated spiritual themes with explorations of mysticism in the digital age. Saar exhibited throughout the country, occasionally with her daughters Alison and Lezley, both artists, and taught at the University of California and at the Parsons-Otis Institute, both in Los Angeles.