Betye Saar, a pioneering artist whose work explored Black identity, culture, and spirituality, died Sunday morning in Los Angeles at the age of 99. Her family confirmed her death on Monday. Saar was set to celebrate her 100th birthday later this week.

A prominent figure in the Black Art Movement of the 1960s, Saar gained recognition for her assemblage boxes—three-dimensional sculptures created from found objects—that reclaimed and transformed Jim Crow-era memorabilia into powerful symbols of Black liberation. Her work spanned painting, printmaking, sculpture, and the use of everyday objects, including dolls, washboards, and antiques. Recurrent motifs in her art included clocks, boats, cages, altars, and symbols drawn from occult and cosmological themes. Saar frequently incorporated lions, reflecting her astrological sign of Leo.

Born and raised in Pasadena, California, Saar started her career in design before transitioning to visual art at the age of 35. She was part of a network of Black artists in the Altadena area and credited Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers as an early artistic inspiration. Saar continued to create and exhibit her work well into her nineties.

Her 1969 piece, *Black Girl’s Window*, is considered groundbreaking, though it did not receive widespread recognition until decades later, eventually becoming part of the Museum of Modern Art’s collection in 2019. Saar has noted the scarcity of gallery spaces in Los Angeles during her early career, particularly those supportive of Black artists.

Among her most significant works is *The Liberation of Aunt Jemima* (1972), which repurposed racist memorabilia to challenge entrenched stereotypes. The piece features the "mammy" figure historically used to demean Black people, reimagined by Saar as a revolutionary figure armed with a rifle and a hand grenade. Saar created the work in response to the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, describing it as a transformation of her grief and rage into art. The work predated the eventual retirement of the Aunt Jemima brand by Quaker Oats in 2020, which acknowledged its origins in racial stereotyping.

Throughout her career, Saar mentored generations of Black artists, including painter Kerry James Marshall. Although she had a solo exhibition at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975, major institutions only sporadically showcased her work until more recent years. In 2019, both the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and MoMA mounted solo exhibitions of Saar’s art.

In spring 2026, Saar was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, cementing her legacy as a vital figure in American art. Angela Robinson Witherspoon, who directed a 2023 documentary about Saar, described her as an artist with "boundless energy" who challenged a predominantly white, male art world. Saar balanced her artistic ambitions with raising three daughters and engaging with the Civil Rights Movement.

Currently, Saar’s wearable art is on display at Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, and a collection of 26 dolls from her planned series of 100 is exhibited at the New-York Historical Society.