{"id":664364,"date":"2026-05-25T16:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664364\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T16:29:11","slug":"how-betye-saar-set-black-dolls-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/664364\/","title":{"rendered":"How Betye Saar Set Black Dolls Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Betye Saar with Black dolls from her collection, 2025 (photo Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California)<\/p>\n

Betye Saar has been accumulating ephemera \u2014 taxidermied animals, cages, computer parts, and more \u2014 throughout her life. Since the 1970s, she has crafted these found objects into assemblage artworks that often subvert racist artifacts and images, beginning with her famed sculpture \u201cThe Liberation of Aunt Jemima\u201d (1972). \u201cI knew I could not avoid the pain, so it became part of my art,\u201d she said in 1973, as quoted in the monograph Black Doll Blues<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, her studio<\/a> is filled to the brim with objects and ephemera gathered from nature, on her international travels, and at flea markets. On one special shelf sits her cherished collection of Black dolls. Some of these dolls, which Saar calls a \u201cfamily,\u201d have traveled to New York City, where they are now on view through October 4 at the New York Historical<\/a> alongside paintings, prints, and sculptures featuring figurines. Nearing the occasion of her upcoming 100th birthday, the exhibition celebrates Saar\u2019s promised gift of her collection of over 100 dolls to the institution.<\/p>\n

\"\"Some of Saar’s dolls in front of a photo of her shelf at home at the New York Historical (photo Jasmine Weber\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

While the artist, over the years, has considered cleaning out her studio, \u201cthe dolls are the one thing she can’t discard,\u201d Wendy N\u0101lani E. Ikemoto, vice president and chief curator of the New York Historical and the exhibition\u2019s co-curator, told Hyperallergic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very meaningful that she’s entrusting us with these dolls,\u201d added co-curator Rebecca Klassen.<\/p>\n

Born in 1926, Saar never had a Black doll of her own to play with as a girl. She came across her first as a college student in 1949 \u2014 an Amosandra doll<\/a> \u2014 and became enthralled by them. She began incorporating them into her art practice in the 1970s, and they have figured into her work ever since, appearing in assemblages like \u201cIndigo Mercy\u201d (1975) and the print \u201cAunt Jemima and Hoo Doo Doll\u201d (1972).<\/p>\n

“I began collecting Black dolls decades ago. Some are hand-made, others manufactured, some even represent derogatory racial stereotypes. They each have a history and I feel some even have an energy of their past life, of the little child who loved them,\u201d Saar said in a statement to Hyperallergic.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cFemale Doll with Two Heads Above\u201d (2020), \u201cFemale Doll in Pink Dress\u201d (2020), and \u201cFemale Doll with Two Heads\u201d (2020) with a Janus doll and a \u201ctopsy-turvy\u201d doll (photo Jasmine Weber\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist found comfort in these dolls and began pulling them down from the shelf and painting them into little scenes, using watercolors, a medium she had seldom explored over her long career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI took solace in painting them and imagining their mystical adventures,\u201d Saar continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dolls are ubiquitous playthings \u2014 among the oldest toys<\/a> in history. Simultaneously a form of textile art and an integral form of play, they also became, over time, an example of learned racism<\/a> and a way to reinforce negative stereotypes through caricature. Saar\u2019s collection dates back to the 19th century, and includes many minstrel, mammy, golliwog, and \u201ctopsy-turvy<\/a>\u201d dolls, which sit alongside some of the earliest mass-produced Black dolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A mid-20th-century doll from Haiti, flanked by \u201cBlack Doll in a Mystic Sky (Green Skirt)\u201d (2021) and \u201cAunt Jemima and Hoo Doo Doll\u201d (1972) (photo Jasmine Weber\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

Saar\u2019s reimagining offered these figurines a new context and a life separate from \u2014 or possibly in spite of \u2014 their original intentions, transforming their meaning, alchemizing negative imagery into something potent, something positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is really attracted to the energy behind the dolls and this idea that they’ve lived very rich past lives and that they have this almost embodied memory of an energetic charge within them,\u201d said Klassen.<\/p>\n

The exhibition at the New York Historical opens with the only doll made by Saar\u2019s hand, in 1974, \u201cHoo Doo Woman,\u201d informed by a Haitian doll from the mid-20th century in her collection that served as a rich source of inspiration from the 1970s until today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Betye Saar, \u201c10 Dolls with Black Mask\u201d (2022) (photo Paul Salveson, courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California)<\/p>\n

In her watercolors and sculptures, Saar offers these dolls alternative lives beyond the parameters of their oft-derogatory origins. In her renderings of dolls drifting through celestial skies, Ikemoto explains that \u201cthere is a deeper cultural reference to the legend of the flying Africans who lift into the sky and fly away rather than submit to bondage.\u201d In another watercolor, the doll has become \u201cgrounded, and he is self-possessed,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe views the act of collecting and gathering and putting things together as a sort of ritual practice,\u201d Klassen said, \u201cfinding the energy within the object and then this ultimately transforming and then releasing the object onto the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Betye Saar\u2019s Black Dolls is on view at the New York Historical through October 4. (photo Jasmine Weber\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Betye Saar with Black dolls from her collection, 2025 (photo Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-664364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}