Pathbreaking artist Betye Saar, whose powerful assemblages of racist memorabilia served up scorching commentary on the condition of the Black American—particularly the Black American woman—died on July 26 in Los Angeles. “It’s like they abolished slavery but they kept Black people in the kitchen as Mammy jars,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. Betye Saar was born Betye Brown in Los Angeles, on July 30, 1926, the oldest of three children. Saar began her career as a social worker but eventually swerved toward design. “That became my theme,” Saar told The Guardian in 2021, “taking the negative and making it positive.”