Betye Saar
Betye Saar: Call and Response looks at the relationship between preliminary sketches in small sketchbooks, which Saar has made throughout her career, and finished works. In addition, the show will include approximately a dozen small travel sketchbooks with more finished drawings—relating to leitmotifs seen throughout Saar’s oeuvre—that she has made over a lifetime of journeys worldwide.
The exhibition cover sthe span of Saar’s career, including work from her early years up through a new sculptural installation. A fully illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition, taking physical form in response to Saar’s sketchbooks. This will be the first exhibition at a California museum to address her entire career and the first anywhere to focus on her sketchbooks.
Betye Saar: Call and Response was first shown at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (September 22, 2019 – April 5, 2020) and traveled to The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (September 12, 2020 – January 31, 2021); Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS (April 10 – July 11, 2021).