Prolific Artist, Betye Saar Reflects On Her Legacy And Latest Hammer Museum Honor Ahead Of 100th Birthday
Forbes
May 4, 2026
By Dominique Fluker
On May 2nd, the Hammer Museum at UCLA welcomed cultural leaders, artists, collectors, and patrons of the arts at the 21st annual Gala in the Garden. During the evening, trailblazing artist Betye Saar was honored for her profound contributions to society through her work, in front of industry peers, patrons, and her loving and supportive family members.Renowned visual artist, Saar was born in 1926 in Los Angeles, and became a pioneer of second-wave feminist and postwar black nationalist aesthetic, given her iconic reclamation of the Aunt Jemima figure in works such as The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), inspired by the civil rights movement, and reclaims the "mammy" stereotype, transforming her into a revolutionary figure armed for liberation.
Betye Saar's Visions of Reality, Altered
The Unibrow
April 14, 2026
By Alexandria Ryahl
In 1994, while attending an artist residency at The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in northern Italy, Betye Saar experimented with using a Polaroid camera as an artist’s tool in tandem with her skills in printmaking, collage and design. Photographing everything from gardens and native flora to the plethora of objects and architectural details in the villas throughout town, Saar began creating what she referred to as “altered Polaroids:” striking photographic compositions on a miniature scale that synthesized core elements of her practice while evolving towards something bigger.
Hammer Museum to Honor Betye Saar at 21st Annual Gala in the Garden
The Hollywood Reporter
March 20, 2026
By Chris Gardner
The Westwood institution has zeroed in on veteran TV creator Darren Star and notable artist Betye Saar as honorees for the 21st annual Gala in the Garden, set to take place on May 2. The event, Hammer’s largest fundraiser, “honors artists and innovators who have made profound contributions to society through their work,” per the museum. It does so in front of local artists, collectors, patrons, celebrities and other art world insiders.
Esmaa Mohamoud Now Represented by Roberts Projects
Roberts Projects is pleased to announce its representation of Esmaa Mohamoud. This announcement follows the gallery’s first solo exhibition with the artist in 2025, What Does Webster’s Say About Soul?
Known for her conceptual practice that incorporates familiar objects and symbols from Black visual culture—including football equipment, peacock chairs, lowriders, butterflies and shea butter—Mohamoud reimagines her source materials by transforming their scale and layering cultural references to recontextualize their conventional meaning.
