Artist Profile

Betye Saar, an African-American artist from a family of artists, was born in Los Angeles in 1926.  She received her BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949 and furthered her studies at California State University, Long Beach; University of Southern California; and California State University, Northridge.  Saar is the recipient of a J. Paul Getty Fund for the Visual Arts Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.  In addition to her public artwork in Los Angeles, Saar has completed projects for the Public Art Fund in New York, Miami, and Newark.  The artist’s works are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.