New York: Artist Betye Saar, whose work reflected 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, 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 Project, the Los Angeles gallery that represented her.
Saar began her career in design and shifted to art at age 35 before continuing 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.
Made in 1969, 'Black Girl's Window' was not widely exhibited until decades later, when it was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
'The Liberation of Aunt Jemima’, made in 1972, became another of her most important works. It features memorabilia she collected that denigrated Black people, including a ‘mammy’ figure. In Saar's hands, however, the figure is reclaimed: She smiles, but holds a rifle and a hand grenade.
“That was done as an answer to the killing of Dr. King,” said Angela Robinson Witherspoon, in reference to the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. “She was raising her three young daughters and she wanted to be part of the Civil Rights Movement."
Robinson Witherspoon, who produced and directed the 2023 documentary, ‘Betye Saar: Ready to Be A Warrior’, said Saar had “boundless energy for making art” and was tired of the art world being dominated by white males.
Though Saar's work was exhibited in a 1975 solo show at the Whitney Museum, large institutions have exhibited her work only sporadically over the decades. In 2019, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and MoMA mounted concurrent solo shows.
Saar taught and mentored a generation of Black artists, including painter Kerry James Marshall. She's long been considered a central figure of the West Coast arts landscape. In spring 2026, Saar was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.