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 useful of assemblage that mined nan searing history of title successful nan United States, and whose useful influenced generations of artists, has died. She was 99.

Saar died successful her slumber — conscionable a fewer days short 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 nan top artists of our time, and it has been an immense grant to activity pinch her for astir 20 years,” Roberts said. “Her singular imagination transformed nan people of modern art, and her bequest will proceed to animate generations of artists, scholars, and audiences astir nan world.”

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

“My activity has to do pinch recycling,” she told a documentary unit successful nan 1970s. “Each point I cod has a definite power from its erstwhile usability that carries complete 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 measurement that “draws connected nan powerfulness of mystery, nan wounded of favoritism and nan authenticity of individual vision.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Liberation” now resides successful nan postulation of nan Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, not acold from wherever it was first shown.

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

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

“The 1 I find nan astir amusing is nan maize cob,” she told nan podcast “The Modern Art Notes” successful 2016. “He had a portion of abstraction pinch bedewed cement truthful he conscionable put nan maize cob successful there. And I conscionable emotion nan benignant of state to make nan 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 activity successful that field, teaming up pinch Curtis Tann to shape a cleverly named workplace called Brown and Tann. Operating retired of Tann’s home, nan institution produced an array of ornamental 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, nan brace was featured successful Ebony magazine.

It was done that circle that she met a ceramicist of German American descent by nan 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 now respected artists successful their ain right. And, successful fact, connected much than 1 occasion, each 3 women person shown their activity together, astir precocious astatine nan Museum of Art & History successful Lancaster successful 2018.) In 2024, nan 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, nan Saar family moved to a rambling hillside location successful Laurel Canyon, past a very rustic portion of L.A. It put them successful a hotbed of hippiedom correct arsenic nan 1960s sewage rolling.

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

“We were arsenic hippie-ish arsenic hippie could be, while still being responsible.”

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

Saar came to creation almost by accident. In nan 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 nan university’s printing department.

“I walked past nan people shop and I was like, ‘Heyyy!’ ” she later recalled.

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

“I loved making prints,” she recalled. “The move 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 nan institution’s extended postulation of African art, followed by a travel to Haiti successful nan early 1970s. Saar was drawn to nan Caribbean federation because of her liking successful voodoo and magic — and nan powerfulness that these could confer connected inanimate objects.

“In nan early 1960s I began going to java houses and they’d person books connected nan occult,” she told nan 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 nan activity of Joseph Cornell astatine nan Pasadena Art Museum (now nan Norton Simon Musuem) that inspired her to return a three-dimensional move successful her work. Saar was moved by nan surreal qualities of nan New York artist’s intimately scaled assemblages, which were often presented successful mini boxes.

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

During nan ‘60s and ‘70s, she took connected a bid of part-time jobs to supply for her children, designing costumes astatine a taste halfway and school astatine area creation schools. These provided her pinch basal income, but besides allowed her capable clip to make activity — which she often did astatine nan room table.

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

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

Plus, creation gave Saar a important governmental sound astatine a clip of nan civilian authorities and Black powerfulness movements. “If you are a mom pinch 3 kids, you can’t spell to a march,” she erstwhile stated, “but you tin make activity that deals pinch 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. history and African American struggle: nan schematics of enslaved ships, nan hackneyed images of vintage kitsch and nan sadistic sobriquets utilized by achromatic supremacists to picture Black children.

At first she was apprehensive astir utilizing this type of imagery successful her work. “Blacks were ashamed of those derogatory images,” she told nan New York Times. “I for illustration to deliberation I recycled those images from antagonistic to positive.”

But location was powerfulness successful those images — and Saar knew conscionable really to harness it.

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

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

This included 1 peculiarly potent work: a solid vessel featuring nan 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 nan walking accumulation “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85,” which went connected position astatine nan California African American Museum (CAAM) successful 2017.

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

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

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

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

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

“You tin really spot nan effect she had connected them,” said Kellie Jones, a clever clever and independent curator who organized “Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980” astatine nan Hammer Museum successful 2011. “She had this multimedia practice. It was astir Africa, but it was astir nan world. She has useful pinch Mexican milagros, she has titles successful Spanish, she astatine definite points has Asian power and Haitian influence. She was really looking astatine nan globe. She was a personification successful nan world, and she really modeled that for group for illustration Hammons and Conwill and Nengudi.”

Saar’s activity resides successful nan imperishable collections of much than 80 world museums, and successful caller years, she was nan taxable of solo shows astatine nan Museum of Modern Art successful New York, nan Prada Foundation successful Milan and nan 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 nan Craft Contemporary. In 2019, a mini but potent show astatine nan Los Angeles County Museum of Art explored nan ways successful which her drafting process factored into her assemblage work. But a afloat retrospective astatine 1 of her hometown’s awesome 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 pinch what was going on.”

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

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

If anything, she competed only pinch herself.

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

“I utilized to travel to nan Huntington pinch my mother 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 complete nan orangish tint of sloughed bark and nan mysterious qualities of plot scraps.

“Even successful decease those things tin beryllium really beautiful,” Saar said successful nan short documentary.

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

“At first, nan caller useful were much nostalgic, pinch vintage photos and female ephemera, for illustration gloves and such,” Saar said. “Then I brought successful nan gangly vessel bookends and African masks, and nan useful moved successful a much ancestral and governmental direction.”

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

“The worst problem 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 nan horizon, Saar successful 2025 formed nan Betye Saar Legacy Group, a committee of her trusted curators and collaborators charged pinch preserving her immense archive and keeping her sanction caller successful nan minds of caller generations of artists.

A Saar curriculum vitae penned by Zoé Whitley, who co-curated “Soul of a Nation: Art successful nan 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.