Alison Saar facts for kids
Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is an artist from Los Angeles. She creates sculptures, uses different materials together (mixed-media), and makes large art setups (installations). Her art often explores themes about the history and culture of people of African descent (the African diaspora) and the identity of Black women.
Saar's work is inspired by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spiritual beliefs. She is famous for taking everyday or old objects and changing them into art that shows ideas about culture, identity, history, and religion. Alison learned a lot about art and spiritual practices from her parents. Her mother, Betye Saar, is a famous artist who makes collages and assemblages. Her father, Richard Saar, was a painter and art restorer. Alison and her sisters, Lezley Saar and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, all became artists, following in their parents' footsteps. Alison Saar has shown her art in galleries worldwide and created public art pieces, especially in New York City. She has won many awards for her work.
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Growing Up and Learning
Alison Saar was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Betye Saar, is a well-known African-American sculptor and installation artist. Her father, Richard Saar, worked with ceramics and restored art. Alison's mother was part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s. She often took Alison and her sisters, Lezley and Tracye, to museums and art shows when they were kids.
They also saw "Outsider Art," which is art made by people who haven't had formal art training. Examples include Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in Los Angeles and Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley. Alison's love for nature, her interest in folk art, and her admiration for artists who make beautiful things from discarded items came from these early experiences.
Alison worked with her father as an art restorer for eight years, starting when she was in high school. This is where she learned how to carve. She says this experience later influenced the materials she chose for her art. Working with old items from different cultures, like Chinese paintings, Egyptian mummies, and Pre-Columbian and African art, taught Alison about various materials and art styles. Her family continues to be a big part of her art, from her ideas to how she creates. As author Hadley Roach said, "In Saar’s life, the kitchen table is the easel, the children are the assistants, and driftwood is periodically dragged in from the backyard to become somebody’s legs."
Saar earned two degrees in art history and fine arts from Scripps College in California in 1978. She then decided to become an artist instead of just studying art. Her main project for her degree focused on African-American folk art. She later earned a master's degree (MFA) from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 1981. While at Otis, she realized she wanted to make art that was more expressive and engaging. Alison and her mother, Betye Saar, have even created artworks together, like House of Gris Gris (1989). From her mother, Alison "inherited a fascination with mysticism, found objects, and the spiritual potential of art."
Starting Her Career
After graduating in 1981, Saar and her husband, Tom Leesar, who is also an artist, moved to New York City. They turned an old warehouse in Chelsea into their home. The old tin tiles they found in their apartment and other old buildings became a common feature in her sculptures.
In 1983, Saar was an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She had another residency in New Mexico in 1985. There, she combined her city style with influences from Native American and Mexican art from the Southwest.
Saar lived in New York for 15 years and had two children, Kyle and Maddy. She then moved back to Los Angeles, where she lives today.
Her Artwork
Alison Saar is skilled in many art forms. She creates metal sculptures, works with wood, makes frescoes (wall paintings), woodblock prints, and uses found objects. Her sculptures and art setups explore themes of African culture and spirituality. Her art often tells stories from her own life and looks at how the human body represents identity and connects to modern ideas about identity.
For example, Snake Man (1994), found at the Honolulu Museum of Art, shows how she uses both African culture and the human body in her art. Saar's diverse background, being from different ethnic groups, and her studies of Latin American, Caribbean, and African art and religions have all shaped her work. She explores practices like Candomblé, Santería, and Hoodoo. She believes that objects hold spirits, and she changes familiar found objects to create strong human feelings.
Her sculptures are often life-sized and show deep emotions. She uses different materials and messages to give her work a rich cultural meaning. When asked why she uses found materials, she said, "I’ve never really thought of my printmaking as political but very much about it being populist, accessible and affordable. I love the history of broadsides where people would print out a poem and plaster the city with them, and I’ve done a couple with poets."
Saar's sculptures often deal with issues of gender and race, drawing from her own experiences and historical events. Many of her works share messages and themes from African American history. Her 2018 exhibit, Topsy Turvy, refers to the character Topsy from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. This character was a long-standing racial stereotype. Saar reimagines Topsy as a symbol of strength and resistance, a character who finds love and transforms after being treated cruelly as an enslaved person.
Saar has said her art aims to stir emotions, but she doesn't directly call it political. However, in a 1993 review, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith said Saar's work was one of the "few instances where the political and visual join forces with real effectiveness." Some of Saar's works do directly refer to current events, like Rise (2020), which is a tribute to the Black Lives Matter Movement. This piece is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Of Saar's 2006 exhibition Coup, critic Rebecca Epstein wrote that Saar "demonstrates deft skill with seemingly unforgiving materials (bronze, lead, tar, wood). [She] juggles 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.”
Art in Public Places
Saar has created several public art pieces during her career. One of her most famous works from the early 2000s is a memorial to Harriet Tubman called Swing Low. This sculpture is located in Harriet Tubman Memorial Plaza in South Harlem, New York City. Saar said she wanted to show Tubman "not as the conductor of the Railroad but as the train itself, an unstoppable locomotive."
In 2011, a public collection of her works called "Seasons" was shown in Madison Square Park. It included individual pieces titled Spring, Fall, Winter, and Summer. In these pieces, Saar used pomegranates to connect to themes from Greek mythology. Inspired by the story of Demeter and Persephone, Saar wove parts of that tale into her series about the seasons.
The opening of the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024 featured a new public artwork by Saar. This monument, called The Salon, is in the Charles-Aznavour Garden on the city’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It shows a Black woman holding an olive branch and a golden flame, surrounded by a circle of chairs where people can sit. It represents peace and the strength of women.
Main Ideas in Her Art
Several ideas appear again and again in Saar's art. These include mythology, girlhood, and family relationships. In an interview, Saar talked about her connection to Yemoja, a Yoruba goddess of childbirth and rivers. She said, "Yemoja crops up in my work a lot. I first discovered her when I was living in New York in the 1990s, trying to grapple with being a young mother and having a career — it felt like a real balancing act. I did a piece then called “Cool Maman,” who is balancing actual pots and pans on her head, all white enamelware. I see Yemoja as not only helping me in terms of patience and balance and child rearing but also as a watery, life-giving spirit who nourishes my creative process."
Art Shows
Alison Saar's art has been shown in museums, art festivals (biennials), galleries, and public places around the world. Some important exhibitions include those at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver Gallery, and Phyllis Kind Gallery. She was an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Her solo museum shows include: Directions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 1993. Alison Saar: Bearing at the Museum of the African Diaspora (2015-16). Winter at The Fields Sculpture Park (2014-15). Hothouse at the Watts Towers Art Center (2014-15). And STILL... which opened at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design in 2012 and traveled to other museums.
Important group shows include: In Profile: Portraits from the Permanent Collection at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2015. African American Art since 1950: Perspectives from the David C. Driskell Center, a traveling show that visited many universities and museums. Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2000. Twentieth Century American Sculpture in the White House Garden at The White House in 1995. And "Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection" in Virginia in 2018. In 2021, Saar organized an exhibition called SeenUNseen at L.A. Louver.
An exhibition at the Ackland Art Museum called Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar featured Alison, her mother, and her sister. This show displayed over 50 mixed-media pieces from all three artists, covering more than 40 years of their work. The main ideas of the collection were "art, family, and identity"; "interpreting stereotypes and offering alternative histories"; "reconsidering slavery"; "interpreting mixed-race ancestry"; and "revealing the spirit through art.” This exhibition focused on how family and art are connected.
Saar's work Hi, Yella was part of the 1993 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This is a very important American art exhibition known for its critical and meaningful content.
In 2021, the Benton Museum of Art and Armory Center for the Arts held a joint exhibition of her work called "Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe".
Alison Saar is represented by L.A. Louver in Venice, California.
Awards
- 1984: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts; Artist in Residence, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City
- 1985: Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Artist in Residence, Roswell Museum of Art, New Mexico
- 1986: Artist in Residence, Washington Project for the Arts
- 1988: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
- 1989: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
- 1998: Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, New Orleans
- 1998: Augustus St. Gaudens Memorial Foundation, Cornish, New Hampshire
- 1999: Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
- 2000: Flintridge Foundation Awards for Visual Arts, Pasadena
- 2003: Distinguished Alumna Award, Scripps College, Claremont; Artist in residence, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
- 2004: Received the COLA Grant, Los Angeles
- 2005: Excellence in Design Award by the New York City Art Commission, New York City
- 2012: Fellow of United States Artists
- 2013: Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York
- City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Artist Fellowship
Collections
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- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
- Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
See Also
In Spanish: Alison Saar para niños
- York: Terra Incognita (2010), Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon
