Skip to main content
Almine Rech

Sally Saul

Sally Saul grew up in Ithaca, a small city in central New York State, where her father was a professor of local government at Cornell University. She attended college at Boulder, Colorado, attracted to the area by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.  She continued her education at San Francisco State University and was awarded a master’s degree, with honors, in American Literature, in 1973. That year Sally met the pop surrealist painter Peter Saul who was living in the San Francisco area at the time. They were married in 1975 and are together today, 45 years later.

In 1981, the couple moved to Austin, Texas, where Peter had obtained a teaching position at the university. There was a large room on the ground floor of the art building devoted to ceramics. Sally took note, went in, got to know the professor Janet Kastner and proceeded to become a ceramic sculptor. She was grateful for the opportunity to take classes at the university, for the support offered, and for the freedom to express herself visually.

While in Texas, Sally had several opportunities to exhibit her work in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. Since moving to Germantown, a tiny but scenic village, two hours north of New York City in 2001, Sally’s sculpture has become known to a much larger part of the art world through group exhibitions at the Zurcher Gallery, Canada Gallery, Venus Gallery in L.A. a solo show “Knit of Identitly,” at the Rachel Uffner Gallery in 2017, and “Blue Hills, Yellow Tree,” a solo show at Pioneer Works in 2019, all of which were noted in the art press. 

Sally’s background in literature gives her a deep and original feel for a very wide range of subjects, from animals she is particularly fond of, owls and other birds to more conceptual subjects, confinement and gender. To quote Sally herself, “Memory, or an editing  of memory informs several of my pieces-material in a quilt, a pattern, the shape and feeling of a room-fragments that evoke time and place and act as a talisman.” Today, she works with confidence and enthusiasm in her new studio to express the way she feels.

Selected artworks

  • Sally Saul, Framing, 2019

    Sally Saul Framing, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    55,9 x 63,5 x 59,7 cm
    22 x 25 x 23 1/2 in

  • Sally Saul, Hideout, 2019

    Sally Saul Hideout, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    58,4 x 49,5 x 32,4 cm
    23 x 19 1/2 x 12 3/4 in

  • Sally Saul, Dog Fight, 2019

    Sally Saul Dog Fight, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    99,1 x 99,1 x 40,6 cm
    39 x 39 x 16 in

  • Sally Saul, Searching, 2019

    Sally Saul Searching, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    63,5 x 30,5 x 19,1 cm
    25 x 12 x 7 1/2 in

  • Sally Saul, Loot, 2019

    Sally Saul Loot, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    20,3 x 38,1 x 30,5 cm
    8 x 15 x 12 in

  • Sally Saul, Owl and Thrush, 2019

    Sally Saul Owl and Thrush, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    40,6 x 44,5 x 17,8 cm
    16 x 17 1/2 x 7 in

  • Sally Saul, Trouble, 2019

    Sally Saul Trouble, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    38,1 x 28,6 x 16,5 cm
    15 x 11 1/4 x 6 1/2 in

  • Sally Saul, Couple, 2019

    Sally Saul Couple, 2019

    Clay and glaze
    29,2 x 28,6 x 25,4 cm
    11 1/2 x 11 1/4 x 10 in

Gallery exhibitions