Family Legacies celebrates the remarkable art of Betye Saar and her daughters, Lezley and Alison Saar. It explores the sharing of artistic and spiritual traditions within a family and shows how two generations of women use art to express changing ideas about gender, race, and ethnicity. Looking at the formal and thematic parallels in this family’s work reveals a fascinating glimpse into their creative dynamic. Each artist’s response to contemporary social issues -- identity, sexuality, spirituality, the female body, and stereotypes -- emerges through her strikingly beautiful creations. During the 1960s and 1970s, Betye became an established artist in Los Angeles. Her autobiographical and political assemblages during this period affirmed the important role played by women, African Americans, and the artworks they created in defining contemporary culture. Lezley and Alison built upon the direction forged by their mother, with assemblages and sculptures that interpret both their family’s history and spiritual traditions. All three artists challenge the prevailing idea of a singular and unchanging African American identity by creating alternative interpretations of history, culture, and race. Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar share a passion for mixing media and incorporating objects into their work to create compositions that are layered with both personal and universal meaning. Drawing upon popular culture as well as sacred arts and beliefs from around the word, the three artists attempt to formulate a more multilayered view of themselves. The objects featured, dating from the 1960s to 2005, include mixed media sculptures and paintings, assemblages, collages, and a collaborative installation created by the three Saars. Key works by each artist, representing the full chronological range and stylistic evolution of their oeuvre, underline their family ties, multi-racial heritage, and strong affinities to nature and diverse cultures. The works demonstrate a desire to reclaim the visual representation of African American women by exploring such subjects as slavery, stereotypes of domestic labor, and historical images of the female body. Through distinctive yet parallel styles, Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar have created a body of transcendent and empowering work that has impacted the history of contemporary art. This book and its accompanying exhibition highlight their position at the crossroads of artistic, feminist, and African American cultural legacies.

Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar

Arts & Photography

Dallow, Jessica

Matilsky, Barbara C.

History & Criticism

University of Washington Press

Lesley Dill is one of the most prominent artists working at the intersection of language and art. Experimenting with a wide range of tactile materials, she fuses poetry and images to create evocative mixed-media artworks and performances.Inspired by her two-year sojourn in India and the illuminating aspects of diverse faith traditions, Dill interprets relationships between the physical and the spiritual. Her expressive artworks, layered with multiple meanings, also reference nature and human identity.This book focuses on two bodies of the artist's work: metallic sculptures such as Shimmer and the drawing-and-textile based installation, Encountering Sister Gertrude Morgan, which interprets the life of the New Orleans missionary and folk artist. Unified by layers of words, figures, and symbolic imagery, the artworks underline Dill's desire to render transcendental experience into form.

Lesley Dill's Poetic Visions: From Shimmer to Sister Gertrude Morgan

Whatcom Museum

Vanishing Ice introduces the rich artistic legacy of the planet’s frozen frontiers now threatened by a changing climate. Tracing the impact of glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice on artists' imaginations, this interdisciplinary survey explores the connections between generations of artists who adopt different styles, media, and approaches to interpret alpine and polar landscapes. Beginning in the eighteenth century, collaborations between the arts and sciences contributed to a deeper understanding of snowcapped mountains, the Arctic, and Antarctica. A resurgence of interest in these environments as dramatic indicators of climate change galvanizes contemporary expeditions to the glaciers and the poles. Today, artists, writers, and scientists awaken the world to both the beauty and increasing vulnerability of ice.

Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012

Painting

Coinciding with the centennial of women’s suffrage in Washington State, Show of Hands: Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010 surveys the contributions made by women to the legacy of Pacific Northwest art. Highlighting work in all media by artists from Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, it presents an intergenerational dialogue that unfolds thematically. Show of Hands, which accompanied an exhibition at the Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington, features geometric and biomorphic abstract artworks created to convey transcendental experiences and the beauty of form. It also focuses on artists whose representational approach expresses personal or communal stories that reference historical, social, and environmental issues. Many artists find inspiration in Native American art, and the heritage of women’s handicrafts is given a new twist by contemporary artists who reinterpret skills passed down through generations. Show of Hands also includes a wide variety of landscapes, which inspired many of the earliest artists.

Show of Hands: Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010

Endangered Species: Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity highlights sixty artists who celebrate biodiversity's beauty, interpret natural and human-induced extinctions, and focus on endangered species from diverse ecosystems. It includes the work of artists who spotlight human actions threatening biodiversity alongside art projects that revitalize habitats and reconnect people to the natural world. Endangered Species surveys a wide range of approaches and media used by artists spanning the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. By tracing links between contemporary and earlier artists, it reveals continuity within a rich cultural tradition of engagement with nature conservation. Juxtaposing the history of art and natural science, Endangered Species explores artists' pivotal role in raising awareness about biodiversity's importance.

Endangered Species: Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology