Betye Saar, sculptor and installation artist, was born in Los Angeles, California in 1926. She received a B.A. degree (not in art) from UCLA in 1949, and an M.A. degree in graphic design from California State University, Long Beach in 1960. Then, deciding to be an artist, she returned to college at age thirty-four, and had another art experience more formative of her artistic vision.

As a child, she watched sculptor Simon Rodia build his now famous Watts Tower out of the accumulated junk, refuse and debris of his environment. This fascinating, inventive and nearly mystical experience, combined with her discovery of the boxes of Joseph Cornell in the 1960s, inspired Saar in her own search for an art of constructed, gathered objects.

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