Alison Saar is an acclaimed sculptor and printmaker whose work explores identity, heritage, and the resilience of the human spirit through powerful figurative imagery. Born in Los Angeles, California, Saar is the daughter of noted assemblage artist Betye Saar and painter-conservator Richard Saar. Growing up in a household steeped in art, history, and cultural inquiry profoundly shaped her visual language. She received her B.A. in art and art history from Scripps College (1978) and her M.F.A. from Otis Art Institute (1981), where she studied under Charles White, an artist whose humanistic approach left a lasting influence on her.

Saar’s work is grounded in the interplay of Black identity, history, and myth, drawing on African, Caribbean, and African American folk traditions, as well as Greek and Roman mythology and Southern vernacular forms. Her sculptures, installations, and prints often feature hybrid female figures, part goddess, part ancestor, part survivor, who embody both vulnerability and power. Materials such as wood, metal, and found objects lend her sculptures a tactile immediacy and a sense of reclamation, while her prints translate those narratives into bold graphic form.

This color lithograph depicting a reclining woman in a yellow slip accompanied by a sinuous snake, is characteristic of Saar’s exploration of feminine archetypes and metamorphosis. Saar often employs serpentine imagery to symbolize transformation, healing, and the cyclical nature of life, echoing African spiritual traditions as well as Greco-Roman mythic motifs such as Medusa or Eve.

Rendered in saturated reds, blues, and ochres, this work bridges the personal and the mythological. The flattened pictorial space, rhythmic contours, and textured color fields reveal Saar’s sensitivity to both printmaking technique and storytelling. Like much of her art, it honors the intersection of body, spirit, and history, portraying the Black female form as both subject and symbol of endurance.

Saar’s work has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art (2021), the Figge Art Museum (2022), and the Blanton Museum of Art (2023). She has also participated in landmark group exhibitions such as Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980 (Hammer Museum, 2011) and Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (Tate Modern, 2017). Her work is represented in major public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Through her art, Alison Saar reclaims myth and history to articulate the enduring complexity, struggle, and beauty of the African American experience.

Selected Exhibitions

Feallan and Fallow, Madison Square Park, NY, outdoor sculptural installation, 2011

African-American Art Since 1950, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE, 2015-2016

Alison Saar in Print, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, 2016

Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena & Benton Museum, Pomona, 2020–2021, survey emphasizing her mythic, spiritual, and material dualities

Legends from Los Angeles: Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar in the Crocker Collection, Crocker Art Museum, CA, 2021

There is a Woman in Every Color: Black Women in Art, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, 2024

The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, 2024-2025

Salon, Public sculpture commission, Paris Olympic Games (installed June 2024, permanent)

Shifting Landscapes, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, 2024–2026)

Black Ecologies in Contemporary American Art, The Benton Museum, Claremont, CA; Saar contributed sculpture and prints to a thematic show examining Black relationships to land and nature, 2025

Desert X 2025 , Coachella Valley, CA, 2025, site-specific installation included in major international art biennial

With Passion and Purpose: Gifts from the Collection of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2025