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Jane Gottlieb Sauer (born 1937) is an American fiber artist, sculptor, gallerist, and educator. She is known for her abstract waxed linen sculptures, sometimes referred to as "closed baskets". Saur founded the Textile Art Alliance; and formerly owned the Jane Sauer Gallery (2005–2013) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Early life, family, and education

Jane Gottlieb was born September 16, 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri. She attended Washington University in St. Louis, and graduated with a B.F.A. degree (1959).

She married Donald Carl Sauer in 1972. She worked as a public school teacher for twelve years. In the late 1990s, she moved to New Mexico.

Career

She focused on painting in her early career, and shifted to fiber art. She was influenced to work in fiber by the book, Beyond Craft: The Art of Fabric (1974) by Jack Lenor Larsen and Mildred Constantine.

Sauer has won many awards for her waxed linen sculptures, which are constructed with a knotting technique and finished with painting. Her works of the 1980s and 1990s display uninhibited emotion; and according to the book Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (2010) Sauer's work is one of the best examples emotionally charged American studio craft of that time period, similarly to Norma Minkowitz.

Sauer had a retrospective exhibition, "Jane Sauer: Impassioned Form" (2001), at the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery at University of Nebraska–Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska. Other notable exhibitions include "Current Exhibition: Jane Sauer" (1988) at the St. Louis Art Museum; and the traveling group exhibition, "The Tactile Vessel: New Basket Forms" (1989–1991) at the American Craft Museum (1989, now the Museum of Arts and Design); and the Erie Art Museum.

Sauer was the gallery director at Thirteen Moons Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and took over the management in 2005. She founded the "Jane Sauer Gallery" in the former Thirteen Moons Gallery space, which focused on fine art and crafts and was active from 2005 until 2013. The gallery was sold in 2013, and the name was Tansey Contemporary until 2017.

Her work is found in public museum collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kemper Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Awards and honors

Sauer was a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellow in 1984. In 2002, Sauer was elected a fellow of the American Craft Council (ACC); and in 2019, she was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the National Basketry Organization (NBO).

References

1. ^ Who's Who in American Art 1991–1992. R. R. Bowker Publishing. 1990. p. 979. ISBN 978-0-8352-2897-8.
2. ^ "Jane Sauer". American Craft Council. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
3. ^ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (2013-12-19). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 1182. ISBN 978-1-135-63889-4.
4. ^ Koplos, Janet; Metcalf, Bruce (2010-07-31). Makers: A History of American Studio Craft. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 430–431. ISBN 978-0-8078-9583-2.
5. ^ "NBO 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award Jane Sauer" (PDF). The National Basketry Organization. 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 16, 2021.
6. ^ Wolgamott, L. Kent (2001-02-18). "Blurring Boundaries: Artist shows true colors by mixing painting, fiber basketry". Lincoln Journal Star. p. 60. Retrieved 2024-03-21 – via Newspapers.com.
7. "Museums". New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. 1989-11-06. p. 153 – via Google Books.
8. ^ "A Finding Aid to the Jane Sauer Papers and Gallery records, 1898–2013" (PDF). Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 9, 2022.
9. Fisher, Rich (September 29, 2011). "Meet the Celebrated Fiber Sculptor and Artist --- and Influential Gallery Owner --- Jane Sauer". Public Radio Tulsa. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
10. Cheney, Jillian (November 20, 2019). "Tansey Contemporary in Denver to close gallery doors before the end of November". UrbanGlass. Retrieved 2024-03-21.
11. "Jane Sauer". The MFAH Collections. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
12. "Basket Form". Philadelphia Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
13. "Circular Evidence America, 20th century". Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
14. "Polychrome III". MFA Boston. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
15. "Jane Sauer". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2024-03-22.
16. "College of Fellows". American Craft Council. Retrieved 2024-03-21.

External links

• Jane Sauer Papers and Gallery records, 1898–2013, from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
• Oral history interview with Jane Sauer, 2005 July 11, from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

• 1937 births
• Living people
• 19th-century American sculptors
• 20th-century American sculptors
• 19th-century American women sculptors
• 20th-century American women sculptors
• 21st-century American artisans
• American sculptors
• American textile artists
• American women sculptors
• Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Artists from St. Louis
• Washington University in St. Louis alumni
• American women textile artists
• Fellows of the American Craft Council