Betye Saar, a pioneering figure of the Black arts movement known for her assemblage works that reclaimed Jim Crow-era memorabilia as images of Black liberation, died on Sunday morning in her hometown of Los Angeles. She was 99.
Assemblage and Reclamation
Saar, a renowned practitioner of assemblage—a sculptural technique using everyday objects—was best known for transforming racist memorabilia such as dolls and washboards into powerful symbols of Black empowerment. She also worked in printmaking and film, exploring themes of family, spirituality, and the African diaspora.
According to Roberts Projects, the Los Angeles gallery representing her, “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.”
Career and Inspiration
Saar began her career in design and shifted to art at age 35, continuing to create 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 inspiration.
Throughout her career, she scoured flea markets and yard sales for discarded objects that revealed how consumer culture depicted Black Americans. “My work has to do with recycling,” she told a documentary crew in the 1970s, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Each item I collect has a certain energy from its previous function that carries over into its new use.”
Iconic Work: The Liberation of Aunt Jemima
Saar is perhaps best known for her 1972 piece The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, a revolutionary reimagining of the Aunt Jemima image used to market pancake mix and syrup. The original image, based on the “mammy” stereotype, depicted enslaved Black women as contented servants. Saar’s version holds a rifle in her left hand and a grenade wedged between her right arm and chest. Quaker Oats retired the Aunt Jemima image in 2021.
Global Influences and Legacy
Saar also incorporated natural materials gathered from travels exploring the African diaspora and spirituality. “Wherever I go, I say, ‘What’s the alternative religion?’ because every country has it,” she said in a 2021 interview with the Guardian. “There are lots of other people that believe in magic and they have their own religion, and I was just really interested in what they did and what their ceremonies were, but mostly what the visual images would be.”
Saar taught and mentored a generation of Black artists, including painter Kerry James Marshall. She was long considered a leading figure of the West Coast arts landscape. In spring 2026, Saar was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
