Africa

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Click on the arrow to hear Betye Saar’s voice and the kinds of sounds she experienced while she traveled through the Americas.(Run time 1 minute 15 seconds).

One of the things that I found interesting was how important Nubia was to Egypt. And most of the people there [in Egypt] had dark skin and kinky hair. You know, like the Nubians did. And now, in our history, they never even mention Nubia.

— Betye Saar, 2021

Africa has long captivated Saar—whether it was in a university art history class where she learned about ancient Egypt or in the context of understanding her own ancestry.

To date, Saar has traveled to Africa five times, exploring both the northern and Sub-Saharan parts of the continent. In 1977 she took a particularly inspirational trip to the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria. The festival, which she documented in her sketchbooks, featured the literature, art, music, and dance of more than fifty nations. After this trip, Saar regularly incorporated the names of African spirits and images of African masks in her work.

In 2000, Saar had the opportunity to visit Egypt. Though objects like miniature sarcophagi and scarabs have long appeared in her assemblages, the chance to see ancient Egyptian ruins and artifacts reaffirmed the potency of these symbols for the artist. The trip, which included lectures by scholars and archaeologists, also helped her understand the spiritual significance and historical context of the Egyptian symbols she was drawn to. Learning about the importance of Nubia (present-day Sudan) to ancient Egypt, she was struck by how her earlier education implied that Egyptians were white. Reflecting on this fact, she noted, “Wow. Racism is something.”

Click on the arrow to hear the kinds of sounds she experienced while she traveled through Africa. (Run time # minutes)

Sculpture.
Watercolor.

Betye Saar, Chronicles, 1995. Mixed media assemblage. Collection of Laurie M. Tisch.

This blue and gold themed piece is a mixed media assemblage. At the center is a watercolor black vase that is adorned with gold splotches. At the center of this vase is a carved circular eye-like object that has concentric circles throughout its iris. Surrounding the vase on either side are red, blue and yellow watercolor. Above the vase as if resting on tip is a small gold sarcophagus. Above the sarcophagus is a object painted to look like an eye with a gold iris. Surrounding the sarcophagus are blue and gold areas of abstract painting. Below the vase is a yellow rectangle, outlined in black, in which five metal keys are hanging; one large in the center and four smaller differently shaped keys on the sides. The key in the center has five religious figures carved into it. Surrounding these areas are two borders of blue with a narrow wood frame. This larger piece on top a blue moiré silk matt and is placed in a gold frame.

Betye Saar, Egypt, pages, 2000. Watercolor and collage.

A rectangular, spiral bound sketchbook is open to show two opposing pages of images. The two pages are oriented vertically so that the spiral binding separating them forms a horizontal center divider. In the top left corner of the top page, a hand painted gold C shape melds into a five pointed gold star to its right. There is a red triangle below it. Both motifs are contained within a small, vertically oriented, midnight blue rectangle. The rectangle is bordered on the right side by a band of wavy yellow paint with indecipherable writing. The remainder of the page is divided vertically into a green section, about 3/4 of the page, filled with small hand painted black circles and a red section filled with tiny, black, horizontally oriented rectangles. In the foreground of the painting covering the division between red and green, is a tall bundle of broom-like painted sticks tied with a string. At the bottom there is a hand painted line of text written in cursive which says, "Bundles of sticks (on the road to Tboden)." The lower page of the sketchbook has a colorfully painted background divided into an upper horizontal section of midnight blue above and three vertical sections of hot pink, orange, and green below. The orange and green sections have the same decorative motifs as on the top page. Written at the top of the page in black is HORN "(in Ch-ll)." There is a large, golden brown, tube-like musical instrument oriented diagonally. A long, twisted, thin strap and a large brown tassel hangs from the instrument.