Betye Saar, influential assemblage artist who 'liberated' Aunt Jemima, dies at 99

Betye Saar, a Los Angeles creator who transformed collections of bigoted bric-à-brac — Sambo dolls, ceramic mammies and crude renderings of pickaninnies — into potent works of assemblage that mined the searing past of contention successful the United States, and whose works influenced generations of artists, has died. She was 99.

Saar died successful her slumber — conscionable a fewer days abbreviated of her 100th day — successful Los Angeles, her longtime gallerist Julie Roberts astatine Robert Projects said. Saar’s decease was confirmed by her publicist Hannah Gottlieb-Graham.

“Betye Saar was 1 of the top artists of our time, and it has been an immense grant to enactment with her for astir 20 years,” Roberts said. “Her singular imaginativeness transformed the people of modern art, and her bequest volition proceed to animate generations of artists, scholars, and audiences astir the world.”

A diminutive pistillate with a low-key mode that belied a steely resolve, Saar was known for combing store sales, flea markets and junk piles for objects that she employed successful collages and assemblages ample and small. These explored hard aspects of American past — including slavery and Jim Crow — but besides touched connected much idiosyncratic themes of family, memory, magic and spirituality.

“My enactment has to bash with recycling,” she told a documentary unit successful the 1970s. “Each point I cod has a definite vigor from its erstwhile relation that carries implicit into its caller use.”

Artist Betye Saar successful her Laurel Canyon location successful 2016.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

In a 1984 profile, Times creation writer Suzanne Muchnic described Saar arsenic an creator who utilized recovered objects successful a mode that “draws connected the powerfulness of mystery, the wounded of favoritism and the authenticity of idiosyncratic vision.”

As Saar’s 100th day approached, her enactment and its groundbreaking value were celebrated afresh successful a slew of articles, including 2 caller profiles successful The Times. As she approached the momentous milestone, Saar appeared much funny successful creating caller creation than successful dissecting her legacy. “That’s what creation is,” she told The Times successful an interrogation successful precocious June. “Making thing wherever determination was nothing.”

Saar archetypal roseate to prominence successful the 1970s, aft crafting a tiny assemblage — astir the size of a shoebox — that featured astatine its halfway a stereotypical Black mammy figurine bearing a firearm successful 1 manus and a grenade successful the other. The portion was archetypal shown astatine the Rainbow Sign, a assemblage halfway successful Berkeley that was located adjacent the office of the Black Panthers.

The creator had begun her nonrecreational beingness arsenic a decorator of greeting cards and location accessories. But 1972’s “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” arsenic the assemblage was called, catapulted her into the halfway of the Black Arts Movement and connected her with a broader contented of assemblage successful California and the creation satellite astatine large. Three years aft its creation, she had a solo accumulation astatine the Whitney Museum of American Art successful New York. Decades later, activistic Angela Davis credited “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” with spurring the Black women’s movement.

“It’s similar they abolished slavery, but they kept Black radical successful the room arsenic mammy jars,” Saar said successful a 2015 interview. “I had this Aunt Jemima, and I wanted to enactment a firearm and a grenade nether her skirts. I wanted to empower her. I wanted to marque her a warrior. I wanted radical to cognize that Black radical wouldn’t beryllium enslaved by that.”

In June 2020, successful the aftermath of the uprisings pursuing the execution of George Floyd, Quaker Oats announced that it would discontinue the Aunt Jemima brand. Saar took to Instagram with an representation of her celebrated enactment and a message: “She’s liberated! Finally astatine agelong last! And it’s astir time!”

“Liberation” present resides successful the postulation of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, not acold from wherever it was archetypal shown.

Betye Saar was calved Betye Irene Brown successful L.A. connected July 30, 1926, the eldest of Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson‘s 3 children. Her father, with whom she was close, died erstwhile Saar was astir 5. And soon thereafter, Parson relocated the household to Pasadena to unrecorded with her maternal aunt, Hattie Parson Keys. (Years later, Saar created a bid of works successful grant of Keys, employing objects that her aunt had near down — thing she would bash for different household members arsenic well.)

Saar’s parents weren’t artists, but creation was successful the air. When she was a child, her parent encouraged her to sew and marque crafts. And, successful the summers, she spent clip astatine the location of her paternal grandparents successful Watts, wherever she saw Simon Rodia gathering the Watts Towers and was struck by his usage of materials.

“The 1 I find the astir amusing is the maize cob,” she told the podcast “The Modern Art Notes” successful 2016. “He had a portion of abstraction with bedewed cement truthful helium conscionable enactment the maize cob successful there. And I conscionable emotion the benignant of state to marque the piece. Anything tin spell successful there.”

After graduating from precocious school, Saar spent 2 years astatine Pasadena City College earlier transferring to UCLA successful 1947. She majored successful design, figuring that she would go an interior decorator — and, for a time, she did so enactment successful that field, teaming up with Curtis Tann to signifier a cleverly named workplace called Brown and Tann. Operating retired of Tann’s home, the institution produced an array of decorative and functional objects, including bowls, ashtrays and jewelry.

To marketplace their goods, they turned to an informal web of African American artists, staging pop-up exhibitions successful people’s homes and successful different impromptu locations. In 1951, the brace was featured successful Ebony magazine.

It was done that ellipse that she met a ceramicist of German American descent by the sanction of Richard Saar. In 1952, they married. The pursuing year, their girl Lezley was born. Two different daughters followed: Alison successful 1956 and Tracye successful 1961. (Lezley and Alison are present respected artists successful their ain right. And, successful fact, connected much than 1 occasion, each 3 women person shown their enactment together, astir precocious astatine the Museum of Art & History successful Lancaster successful 2018.) In 2024, the Equal Justice Initiative Legacy Gallery installed Saar’s “Seeking Secrets of Destiny” alongside her girl Alison’s sculpture “The Beckoning.”

Betye Saar, flanked by her daughters, stands earlier a painted ceramic wall.

(Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times)

In 1962, the Saar household moved to a rambling hillside location successful Laurel Canyon, past a precise rustic portion of L.A. It enactment them successful a hotbed of hippiedom close arsenic the 1960s got rolling.

“Down the roadworthy was Frank Zappa,” Saar recalled successful 1 interview. “There weren’t that galore houses. We had the agelong skirts and agelong hair, and it was precise casual. You’d spell to a love-in oregon a concert.”

“We were arsenic hippie-ish arsenic hippie could be, portion inactive being responsible.”

By the precocious ‘60s, she and Saar had divorced. But she remained successful Laurel Canyon, wherever she would unrecorded and enactment until the extremity of her life.

Saar came to creation astir by accident. In the precocious 1950s, she enrolled astatine Cal State Long Beach to prosecute a master’s grade truthful that she could teach. But a stroll done field led her past the university’s printing department.

“I walked past the people store and I was like, ‘Heyyy!’ ” she aboriginal recalled.

The master’s grade ne'er happened. Instead, she poured herself into printing.

“I loved making prints,” she recalled. “The determination into good art, it was liberating. It gave maine state to experiment.”

A brace of other, longer journeys, besides proved formative.

There was a travel to Chicago’s Field Museum, wherever she immersed herself successful the institution’s extended postulation of African art, followed by a travel to Haiti successful the aboriginal 1970s. Saar was drawn to the Caribbean federation due to the fact that of her involvement successful voodoo and magic — and the powerfulness that these could confer connected inanimate objects.

“In the aboriginal 1960s I began going to java houses and they’d person books connected the occult,” she told the New York Times successful 1978. “I was attracted to signs and diagrams of alchemy and palmistry, and I began to usage them successful my prints. I besides haunted second-hand and junk stores, and I started to framework my prints successful aged model frames.”

But it was a sojourn to an accumulation of the enactment of Joseph Cornell astatine the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Musuem) that inspired her to instrumentality a three-dimensional crook successful her work. Saar was moved by the surreal qualities of the New York artist’s intimately scaled assemblages, which were often presented successful tiny boxes.

“I instantly started collecting worldly aft I saw that show,” she told the L.A. Times successful 2016. “I started going to gait income and property sales.”

During the ‘60s and ‘70s, she took connected a bid of part-time jobs to supply for her children, designing costumes astatine a taste halfway and teaching astatine country creation schools. These provided her with indispensable income, but besides allowed her capable clip to marque enactment — which she often did astatine the room table.

Saar’s creations from that epoch are connected show done Aug. 22 astatine Roberts Projects. Titled, “Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar,” the amusement covers the years Saar spent successful the costume section for the Inner City Cultural Center’s theatrical productions.

“Art comes from the bosom and the head,” she erstwhile said. “You don’t request to person a abstracted abstraction successful which to marque it.”

Plus, creation gave Saar a important governmental dependable astatine a clip of the civilian rights and Black powerfulness movements. “If you are a ma with 3 kids, you can’t spell to a march,” she erstwhile stated, “but you tin marque enactment that deals with your anger.”

“The Weight of Betrayal,” 2015, by Betye Saar.

(Brian Forrest / Roberts Projects)

In her assemblages, she incorporated symbols that channeled acheronian episodes of U.S. past and African American struggle: the schematics of enslaved ships, the hackneyed images of vintage kitsch and the cruel sobriquets utilized by achromatic supremacists to picture Black children.

At archetypal she was apprehensive astir utilizing this benignant of imagery successful her work. “Blacks were ashamed of those derogatory images,” she told the New York Times. “I similar to deliberation I recycled those images from antagonistic to positive.”

But determination was powerfulness successful those images — and Saar knew conscionable however to harness it.

“Saar’s assemblage doesn’t conscionable picture history,” wrote erstwhile Times creation professional Christopher Knight of her enactment successful 2019, “it embodies a visceral transportation to it.”

She would spell connected to deploy these tropes successful myriad ways passim her vocation — successful peculiar the stereotypical fig of the Black mammy.

This included 1 peculiarly potent work: a solid vessel featuring the visage of a smiling mammy, which she transformed into a Molotov cocktail. The piece, which for decades had been successful a backstage collection, reappeared successful the traveling accumulation “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85,” which went connected presumption astatine the California African American Museum (CAAM) successful 2017.

“Historically, the mammy was the eventual representation of Black pistillate servitude successful the American psyche,” wrote historiographer Steven Nelson successful the catalog that accompanied a 2017 accumulation of Saar’s enactment astatine the Craft Contemporary (then known arsenic the Craft & Folk Art Museum). “She was benignant and giving. She cooked and cleaned and did the laundry. She took attraction of the children. She was harmless.”

By arming her mammies with revolvers, rifles and bullets, Saar turned a awesome of servility into 1 of militancy and power.

“Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail,” 1973, shown astatine the accumulation “We Wanted a Revolution” astatine CAAM successful 2017.

(Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum / Betye Saar, Roberts Projects)

Her enactment besides often touched connected the personal: family, dreams, magic and the assemblage (particularly the Black pistillate body). In the process, she influenced a younger procreation of artists, cardinal figures specified arsenic Houston Conwill, Senga Nengudi and David Hammons.

“You tin truly spot the interaction she had connected them,” said Kellie Jones, a student and autarkic curator who organized “Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980” astatine the Hammer Museum successful 2011. “She had this multimedia practice. It was astir Africa, but it was astir the world. She has works with Mexican milagros, she has titles successful Spanish, she astatine definite points has Asian power and Haitian influence. She was truly looking astatine the globe. She was a idiosyncratic successful the world, and she truly modeled that for radical similar Hammons and Conwill and Nengudi.”

Saar’s enactment resides successful the imperishable collections of much than 80 planetary museums, and successful caller years, she was the taxable of solo shows astatine the Museum of Modern Art successful New York, the Prada Foundation successful Milan and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art successful Arizona (which hosted a retrospective).

In L.A., she had regular exhibitions astatine her Culver City assemblage Roberts Projects, arsenic good arsenic one-woman shows astatine CAAM and the Craft Contemporary. In 2019, a tiny but potent amusement astatine the Los Angeles County Museum of Art explored the ways successful which her drafting process factored into her assemblage work. But a afloat retrospective astatine 1 of her hometown’s large museums eluded her.

Saar told The Times that she didn’t fto it fuss her: “I’ve ever done what I did and ne'er felt I was competing with what was going on.”

An installation presumption of “Mojotech,” 1987, by Betye Saar astatine the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

(Tim Lanterman / Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Roberts Projects)

If anything, she competed lone with herself.

Well into her 90s, she continued to get up each time to trade assemblages retired of the objects she had amassed successful her studio. At 96, she scoured the Huntington Library gardens for a commissioned installation she called a “full-circle” project.

“I utilized to travel to the Huntington with my parent erstwhile I was a child. She loved to garden, particularly African violets, and she passed that emotion of plants and quality connected to me,” Saar told the New York Times Style Magazine successful 2024.

That emotion is palpable successful “Drifting Toward Twilight” and its accompanying documentary, which sees Saar fawning implicit the orangish tint of sloughed bark and the mystical qualities of plot scraps.

“Even successful decease those things tin beryllium truly beautiful,” Saar said successful the abbreviated documentary.

After moving with a 17-foot canoe arsenic a centerpiece for the Huntington exhibition, Saar told Curate LA that she felt compelled to instrumentality to small-scale pieces. The effect was her 2024 Roberts Projects exhibit, “Betye Saar: New Work,” an objet trouvé medley successful bronze and golden hues.

“At first, the caller works were much nostalgic, with vintage photos and pistillate ephemera, similar gloves and such,” Saar said. “Then I brought successful the gangly vessel bookends and African masks, and the works moved successful a much ancestral and governmental direction.”

Even her grandson’s discarded machine parts made a cameo, a testament to Saar’s uncanny quality to excavation inspiration from the astir mundane objects.

“The worst occupation for an creator is having thing to say,” she erstwhile said successful an interview. “I conscionable person truthful galore ideas. … Look astatine things that are important to you, what’s happening successful your life. If you person that, you ne'er tally retired of ideas.”

With her centennial connected the horizon, Saar successful 2025 formed the Betye Saar Legacy Group, a committee of her trusted curators and collaborators charged with preserving her immense archive and keeping her sanction caller successful the minds of caller generations of artists.

A Saar biography penned by Zoé Whitley, who co-curated “Soul of a Nation: Art successful the Age of Black Power,” is expected successful 2027.

Saar is survived by her daughters Lezley, Alison (both artists) and Tracye (a writer), and her grandchildren Kyle Leeser, Maddy Inez, Sola Saar, Gen Saar Agustsson, Spencer Saar Cavanaugh, Megan Cavanaugh

Times unit writers Malia Mendez and Jessica Gelt contributed to this report.