Betye Saar, the pioneering artist whose widely admired creations explored Black identity via assemblage art, had deep roots in Pasadena and Altadena.
Saar died on July 26 at her home in Los Angeles, four days short of her 100th birthday, “in her sleep at home amongst family,” according to a statement released by family on Tuesday.
The loss reverberates deeply at The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, where Saar created “Drifting Toward Twilight” in 2023. The commissioned work features a 17-foot-long vintage wooden canoe and other found objects, such as birdcages, antlers and natural materials Saar herself discovered on the grounds of the San Marino institution.
The large-scale what size installation will be on display at The Huntington’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art through Nov. 30, 2027.
Assemblage refers to sculpture made from found objects, and Saar was a leading practitioner in California starting in the 1960s, along with Noah Purifoy, George Herms, Edward and Nancy Kienholz and John Outterbridge. A pivotal figure of the 1960s Black Art Movement, Saar created groundbreaking assemblage boxes and reworked Jim Crow-era stereotypes, reinventing them as powerful totems of Black liberation.
“It meant a great deal to The Huntington to work with Saar, an artist of extraordinary talent and wisdom whose life and creative vision were so deeply rooted in this region,” said Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russel Kelly Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “We felt incredibly fortunate to collaborate with her in the region where her remarkable journey began and to help preserve such personal and meaningful work for future generations.
As a child, Saar visited The Huntington with her mother and aunt, who were avid gardeners, Nielsen said. “Drifting Toward Twilight” allowed her to return to those early memories while exploring themes such as nature, memory, and spirituality.
“We hope the community remembers Saar as someone who changed the way people see,” Nielsen added. “She had a profound ability to uncover meanings in objects others might overlook and transform them into art that was bold, layered, and unforgettable.”
Saar was born in Watts and moved to Pasadena as a young child. She was the oldest of three children of Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson, both of mixed heritage: African, Native American and Irish on her mother’s side, and African and Choctaw on her father’s.
Brown died when she was 5, and Betye grew up in Pasadena with her mother. She began her art career at age 35.
“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,” according to Roberts Projects, the Los Angeles gallery that represents her.
One of Saar’s most important works is “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” created in 1972, which features memorabilia she collected that denigrated Black people, included a “mammy,” or 19th century minstrel character who smiled while serving white slave owners.
In Saar’s hands though, the figure smiles while holding a rifle and a hand grenade.
Saar said the work is a response to the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which “triggered a rage within me, and the mystic transformed into the warrior.”
“I had a lot of hesitation about using powerful, negative images such as these — thinking about how white people saw Black people, and how that influenced the ways in which Black people saw each other,” Saar said. “What saved it was that I made Aunt Jemima into a revolutionary figure.”
The first work by Saar to enter The Huntington’s collection was the 1981 scarf collage titled “the Fragility of Illusion,” which it acquired in 2015. It’s commissioning of “Drifting Toward Twilight,” brings their relationship full circle, Nielsen said.
Saar said “Drifting Toward Twilight” was her way of bringing the outside into the gallery and create a quiet, contemplative experience for visitors. It is a peace she found at The Huntington.
To complement the commission, The Huntington produced a short film directed by Kyle Reingold, program director of Ghetto Film School LA. It also published a book offering a new lens on Saar’s life and work, with particular emphasis on her childhood in Pasadena, her early experiences at The Huntington, and the surrounding landscape’s influence on her artistic practice.
“What drew The Huntington to Saar’s work was the extraordinary power of her artistic vision and the importance of her perspective as a Black feminist artist,” Nielsen added. “Her work invites viewers to consider the histories embedded in objects and their capacity for reinvention and transformation. By connecting the personal with the political, and the natural world with the gallery, Saar brought perspectives long excluded from museums to the center of American art.”
That combination of historical urgency, emotional depth, and imaginative possibility made her work especially meaningful within The Huntington’s collections and spaces, she said.
Another Saar creation, “Gris Gris Box,” 1972, is on display at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Grand Avenue, as part of “The Expanding Field: MOCA’s Collection from the 1940s to 1970s.”
Saar’s family said a celebration of their matriarch’s spirit and accomplishments is being planned.
“Betye was a force of nature who touched many people’s lives with her energetic spirit, soulfulness and mother wit,” they said in a statement.
Saar is survived by her three daughters, writer Lezley Saar, artists Alison Saar and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, six grandchildren, and Rojo, the red-footed tortoise.
For Nielsen, of The Huntington, talk of Saar’s legacy must include future generations she hopes “will continue to encounter her work with the same sense of discovery, challenge, and wonder that she inspired throughout her life.”
The Associated Press and the New York Times contributed to this report.