The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Fragments

1976

Betye Saar

(American, b. 1926)
publisher

Neighbors of Watts

printer

Cirrus Editions

America
photo lithograph
Sheet: 35.2 x 46 cm (13 7/8 x 18 1/8 in.)
Gift from funds of various donors to the Department of Prints and Drawings 2000.93
Location: Not on view

Description

Betye Saar once said, “I feel that every object has its story about its previous life, and sometimes I change that, but I like to have a lot unsaid so the viewer can kind of reinterpret what I am trying to say.” Here, the artist has photographed an arrangement of several items. The handwriting at bottom left reads, “Keep for Old Memiors [sic],” written by Saar’s great-aunt Hattie Parson Keys, who had died the previous year. Taken together, these remnants are vessels for memories and emotions. Because the photolithograph exists as a multiple, these objects, with their shared past, can have numerous potential futures.
  • Tobey Moss Gallery, Los Angeles; Betye Saar (the artist)
  • Photographs in Ink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 20, 2022-April 2, 2023).
  • {{cite web|title=Fragments|url=false|author=Betye Saar, Neighbors of Watts, Cirrus Editions|year=1976|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2000.93