Alison

Alison

Betye’s printmaking studio was located in a dedicated room in her Laurel Canyon home during her daughters’ youth, but the acids and machinery involved in intaglio printmaking meant the studio was generally off-limits to the young children. However, the girls still made their way into Saar’s studio symbolically by appearing in her family-focused prints. In this portrait-print, seven-year-old Alison’s face fills the frame, her head conforming to the rectangular shape of the metal plate on which Betye etched her second daughter’s likeness. Large, inquisitive eyes meet the viewers gaze, and we are invited to imagine a mother’s gaze returned by one of the little muses she sees just outside her home-studio each day.

“As children, my sisters and I were taken to museums and art openings like some kids go to baseball games and the zoo.” —Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh

Betye Saar

1963

Etching

Collection of Julie Farr