MFA Fine Arts - 1981
Alison Saar ('81, MFA Fine Arts) was born in Los Angeles in 1956 to celebrated African
American artist Betye Saar and painter-conservator Richard Saar.
She is a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, an
Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a City of Los Angeles
(C.O.L.A.) Artist Fellowship. Since her artist residency at Dartmouth College, she has had key exhibitions at the
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver and Pasadena Museum of California
Art.
Saar's highly personal, often life-sized sculptures are marked by their emotional
candor, and by their contrasting materials and messages, thus imbuing her figures
and other artworks with important cultural subtext.
Art critic Rebecca Epstein writes,"Saar 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. [Her works often embody a] balance of strength and tenderness,
in form and idea."
