Background
Alison Saar was born on February 5, 1956, in Los Angeles, California, United States. She is a daughter of Richard Saar, an art conservator, and Betye Saar, a sculptor and an artist.
Alison Saar was born on February 5, 1956, in Los Angeles, California, United States. She is a daughter of Richard Saar, an art conservator, and Betye Saar, a sculptor and an artist.
Alison Saar, along with her two sisters, Lezley and Tracye, was exposed to the art world since her early years. A daughter of a famous assemblage artist Betye Saar, she frequently accompanied her mother at different art events, including those related to Outsider Art. All the types of art and all items of folk culture that Saar came across during her childhood and youth had a great impact on her further style as an artist.
While in a high school, Alison Saar assisted her father, an art conservationist, in his workshop. It was there where she enriched her knowledge about various cultures, including Chinese Egyptian, Pre-Columbian and African art, and learned the particularities of the materials used in each of them.
After graduating from high school, Saar pursued her studies at Scripps College where a celebrated art historian, Dr. Samella Lewis, was among her teachers. Saar received a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history and studio art in 1978.
It was followed by a Master of Arts degree from Otis College of Art and Design (then Otis Art Institute) three years later.
Alison Saar relocated to New York City in 1983 following her husband who received a job as a digital artist in Chelsea. That same year, Saar became an artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Two years later, she served in the same capacity at the Roswell Museum of Art, New Mexico. Since then, she has been in residence at Washington Project for the Arts, and the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College.
Saar has regularly exhibited nationally and internationally, including the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver Gallery, Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York City, Ben Maltz Gallery, and Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the Whitney Biennial of 1993.
Saar's art in Venice, California is represented by L.A. Louver Gallery.
Alison Saar is an accomplished sculptor and artist who received recognition in both sculpture and painting.
Saar’s artworks have been acquired by such art galleries and museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., and others.
Saar has received many fellowships from noted foundations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Flintridge Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters among others.
Through her sculptures, paintings, and prints, Alison Saar explores the role of the human body that it has played and plays in the history of identity politics. She touches on the problems of racism and gender that are relevant nowadays.
Saar believes in the spirituality of objects and tries to express certain human emotions through the found objects she often uses in her artworks.
Quotations: "The pieces always feel like children to me, in that they have their own personalities and their own needs and desires, and their own abilities."
Alison Saar became a United States Artists fellow in 2012.
Quotes from others about the person
"[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." Rebecca Epstein, art critic
Alison Saar is married to Tom Leeser, a digital media artist. The family produced two children, Maddy and Kyle.
