Betye Saar is a pioneering figure in American art, best known for her assemblages, collages, and prints that confront race, gender, spirituality, and cultural identity through layered symbolism. Born in Los Angeles, California, Saar studied design at UCLA (B.A. 1949) before turning to fine art, later earning graduate degrees from California State University, Long Beach, and teaching briefly at UC Los Angeles and the Otis Art Institute. A key member of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Saar brought a distinctly feminist and personal sensibility to political art, transforming everyday found objects, photographs, and symbols into vessels of history and resistance.

Though widely celebrated for her mixed-media assemblages, printmaking has long been central to Saar’s practice. She began making etchings and lithographs in the early 1960s, often using the print medium as a space for experimentation, combining text, image, and symbolic motifs that later reappeared in her three-dimensional work. Her prints layer histories of oppression with symbols of protection and transformation: hands, eyes, stars, maps, and celestial forms intertwine with fragments of memory and folklore.

Over seven decades, Betye Saar has reshaped the language of American art, linking personal narrative with collective history. Her groundbreaking assemblage The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) redefined Black female representation in art and remains an icon of political resistance. Saar’s work has been the subject of major retrospectives, including Betye Saar: Still Tickin’ (2015, Museum De Domijnen, the Netherlands), Call and Response (2019, Los Angeles County Museum of Art), and Serious Moonlight (2022, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum). Her works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hammer Museum, among others.

Betye Saar’s printmaking practice reveals her enduring preoccupation with transformation, turning fragments of history, both painful and poetic, into powerful symbols of spiritual resilience.

Selected Exhibitions

The Negro In American Art: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Afro-American Art, Dickson Art Galleries, UCLA Art Galleries, Los Angeles, CA, 1966

Dimensions of Black, La Jolla Museum of Art, CA, 1970

Sapphire (You've Come A Long Way, Baby), Gallery 32, Los Angeles, CA, 1971

BETYE SAAR: Black Girl's Window, Berkeley Art Center, CA, 1972-1973

Blacks: USA: 1973, New York Cultural Center, 1973

BETYE SAAR, Whitney Museum of Art, NY, 1975

Rituals: The Art of BETYE SAAR, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 1980

Impressions/Expressions: Black American Graphics, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 1980

Ritual and Myth: A Survey of African American Art, Studio Museum in Art, NY, 1982

Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade 1963-1973, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, 1985

BETYE SAAR: Sentimental Sojourn: Strangers & Souvenirs, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA, 1987

19 Sixties: A Cultural Awakening Re-Evaluated, 1965-1975, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1989

African-American Abstractions in Printmaking from the Brandywine Graphic Workshop, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1989

Affirming a Visual Heritage: The Collection of Alonzo and Dale Davis, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 1996

Connections: LA Printmaking 1962 to 1973, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, CA, 2010

Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, Hammer Museum of Art, University of California-Los Angeles, 2011-12

Full Spectrum: Prints from the Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, 2012