Betye Saar, Pioneering Assemblage Artist, Dies in Los Angeles at 99

Pioneering Artist Betye Saar Dies at 99

Saar was born Betye Irene Brown in Los Angeles on July 30, 1926, as the eldest of Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson’s three children. Her father died when she was approximately five years old, after which her mother relocated the family to Pasadena to live with her maternal aunt, Hattie Parson Keys. Saar began her professional life as a designer of greeting cards and home accessories before shifting to art at the age of 35.

Transforming Found Objects Into Revolutionary Art

Saar became renowned for scouting flea markets and yard sales for ordinary, discarded items—such as clocks, window frames, plastic dolls, miniature ships, masks, washboards, and bigoted bric-a-brac including Sambo dolls, ceramic mammies, and pickaninny renderings—to craft powerful works of sculpture and assemblage. Explaining her creative process to a documentary crew in the 1970s, Los Angeles Times stated that her work had to do with recycling and that each collected item carried a certain energy from its previous function into its new use.

Her work grew increasingly political following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which she said triggered a rage within her that transformed the mystic into a warrior. Her landmark 1969 piece, Black Girl’s Window, was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2019. In 1972, she created her most famous work, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, for an open call at the Los Angeles Times community center in Berkeley. The piece subverted a derogatory marketing character by arming the figure with a rifle and grenade, transforming an object of ridicule into a revolutionary warrior. Activist Angela Davis later credited the work with spurring the Black women’s movement.

Legacy, Mentorship, and Final Exhibitions

Throughout her decades-long career, Saar taught and mentored generations of Black artists, including painter The Guardian. Her contributions to the arts were recognized in spring 2026 with her induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Saar is survived by her three daughters—Lezley, Alison, and Tracye—as well as six grandchildren and her pet tortoise. Stewardship of her work is managed by the Betye Saar Legacy Group, established by the artist and her studio in partnership with Roberts Projects. Several exhibitions of her work remain on view, including a wearable art collection at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, a showcase at the Palmer Museum of Art in State College, Pennsylvania, and a doll collection at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan.