On July 30, legendary artist Betye Saar will celebrate her 100th birthday. A central figure in the Black Arts and feminist art movements of the 1960s, she is best known for her assemblage boxes reframing the history and legacy of racism in America, which she has sought to transform objects of hate into symbols of liberation. One of Saar’s most famous works is her 1972 sculpture The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, in which an Aunt Jemima figurine is armed with a small broom and a tiny rifle.
“She took assemblage in a new direction,” Zoé Whitley, who is currently writing a biography of Saar, told ARTnews last year. “Betye was able to see the world and then distill it into assemblage… There’s just this fascinating nexus of thinking about her.”
A list of places to see the renowned artist’s work follows below.
