Betye Saar, the American artist whose found-object works confronted racism, spirituality and the weight of personal history, died in her sleep on 26 July 2026 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 99 — four days shy of her 100th birthday on 30 July (Roberts Projects).

Her death in the early morning hours was confirmed by relatives on 27 July, according to the Associated Press (AP News). Roberts Projects, the Los Angeles gallery that represented her, announced the news in a statement, describing Saar as "a pioneering artist and a leading figure in the assemblage movement" (Artnet).

Assemblage — the practice of constructing artworks from everyday objects and found materials — was the medium Saar made her own across a career spanning more than six decades. The gallery said her practice "transformed everyday items into groundbreaking artworks and installations" and that her work "powerfully interrogated African American identity, spirituality and the intersections between diverse cultures" (Roberts Projects).

Her best-known work is "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima" (1972), an assemblage that takes a vintage mammy figurine — a racist caricature once used to sell pancake mix — and places a rifle in its hand. The piece turned a symbol of subservience into one of armed resistance. Her first assemblage, "Black Girl's Window" (1969), a compartmented box featuring a silhouetted figure and fragments of imagery behind glass, signalled the direction her work would take (Artnet).

Saar was born in Los Angeles in 1926 and grew up in Pasadena, California (Pasadena Now). Her father died when she was five, from an infection that a segregated hospital refused to treat — a fact she carried into her understanding of American life and, eventually, into her art (Artnet). She had lived in her Laurel Canyon home since 1962 (Roberts Projects).

Major obituaries appeared swiftly. The Los Angeles Times published one by Carolina A. Miranda on 27 July, and the New York Times carried one by Jori Finkel the same day. A week earlier, the Los Angeles Times had already run a profile of Saar ahead of her centenary, written by Tara Anne Dalbow (Roberts Projects).

Saar is survived by her three daughters, Lezley, Alison and Tracye, six grandchildren, and a pet tortoise (Artnet).