Artist Betye Saar, whose work reflects Black identity, dies at 99
[July 28, 2026]
By COREY WILLIAMS
Artist Betye Saar, whose work reflects Black identity, culture and
spirituality, died Sunday morning in Los Angeles at 99.
Saar's death was confirmed Monday by relatives. She would have turned
100 this week.
A central figure of the 1960s Black Art Movement, Saar pioneered
assemblage boxes, or sculptures made of found objects, and reclaimed Jim
Crow-era memorabilia as powerful totems of Black liberation.
“Her symbolically rich body of work has evolved over time to demonstrate
the environmental, cultural, political, racial, technological, economic,
and historical context in which it exists,” according to Roberts
Projects, the Los Angeles gallery that represents her.
Saar began her career in design and shifted to art at age 35. She
continued to make art into her 90s. She grew up in Pasadena and was part
of a community of Black artists in nearby Altadena; she often cited
Simon Rodia's Watts Towers as an early source of inspiration.
Saar’s practice incorporated painting, printmaking, sculpture and found
objects including dolls, washboards and other antiques. Boats, clocks,
cages and altars recur in her practice, as well as symbols of the occult
and cosmology. She often referenced her astrological sign of Leo in the
form of lions, punctuating many works.
“Her appropriation of Black collectibles, heirlooms, and utilitarian
objects are transformed through subversion,” the gallery said. “Among
the older generation of Black American artists, Saar is without
reproach.”
Made in 1969, “Black Girl’s Window,” was groundbreaking. Still, it
wasn't widely celebrated until decades later, and it was acquired by the
Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2019. “There weren’t that many
galleries in Los Angeles at the time and there certainly weren’t any for
Black artists,” she once said in an interview.
“The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” created in 1972, is one of her most
important works. It features memorabilia she collected that denigrated
Black people, included a “mammy,” or 19th century minstrel character who
smiled while serving white slave owners.
In Saar's hands though, the figure is reclaimed: She smiles, but holds a
rifle and has a hand grenade.
It came in response to the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Saar said King's death “triggered a rage
within me, and the mystic transformed into the warrior.”
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Betye Saar poses at her studio in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, in
2026. (David Sprague/Artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles via
AP)
 “I had a lot of hesitation about
using powerful, negative images such as these — thinking about how
white people saw Black people, and how that influenced the ways in
which Black people saw each other,” Saar said. “What saved it was
that I made Aunt Jemima into a revolutionary figure.”
After more than 130 years, Quaker Oat announced it would retire its
Aunt Jemima brand in 2020, acknowledging the logo and its origins
were “based on a racial stereotype.”
Saar taught and mentored generations of Black artists, including
painter Kerry James Marshall.
Though Saar’s work was exhibited in a 1975 solo show at the Whitney
Museum of American Art, in the decades that followed large
institutions have exhibited her work only sporadically. In 2019
though, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and MoMA mounted
concurrent solo shows.
In spring 2026, Saar was inducted to the American Academy of Arts
and Letters.
“She had boundless energy for making art. I think she had a lot to
say and was tired of the art world being dominated by white males,”
said Angela Robinson Witherspoon, who produced and directed a
documentary in 2023 on Saar's life. “Betye Saar: Ready to Be A
Warrior” features interviews with John Legend, Tina Knowles and
other prominent voices.
“She was raising her three young daughters and she wanted to be part
of the Civil Rights Movement,” Robinson Witherspoon said.
“Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar,” which focuses on
costume design, is currently on view at Robert Projects in Los
Angeles, and a collection of more than 100 of her dolls are on view
at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan.
___
Associated Press writer Anna Furman contributed reporting from Los
Angeles.
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