Image: L.A. Louver, Venice
L.A. Louver has issued a tribute to Los Angeles artist Betye Saar, marking her death and celebrating a career that the gallery describes as pioneering, spiritually grounded and resistant to definition. In a newsletter titled 'Celebrating Betye Saar, 1926-2026,' the Venice gallery said Saar “quietly on Sunday morning” passed “from this realm into her next,” and saluted the legacy she leaves behind.
The statement places Saar among the most resonant figures in Los Angeles art. L.A. Louver said her “identity, vision, and spirituality generated a lifetime of pioneering art-making that resisted being contained or defined.” The gallery also emphasized the length of its relationship with the artist’s family, saying it had enjoyed a long friendship with Saar through her daughter and gallery artist Alison Saar. No exhibition announcement accompanied the tribute, but the message framed Saar’s death as a moment of remembrance within the gallery’s ongoing relationship to the Saar family.
The newsletter offered a rare personal detail about Saar’s final visit to L.A. Louver in April. According to the gallery, a colleague offered her a chair to rest in, but Saar declined with the words, “No thank you, I have my cane.” She then “strode fiercely” into the main gallery to see Alison Saar’s exhibition, 'Meet Me at the Crossroads: Ruby’s Soul Service Station.' The account underscores the artist’s continued presence and engagement with art even in her last visit to the space.
L.A. Louver also extended condolences to the Saar family, naming Lezley Saar, Alison Saar, Alison’s husband Tom Leeser, and Betye Saar’s grandchildren Kyle Leeser, Maddy Inez, Sola Saar, Gen Saar-Agustsson, Spencer Saar Cavanaugh and Megan Cavanaugh. The tribute was accompanied by family photographs, including images captioned 'Betye & Alison Saar, 1985,' 'Betye & Alison Saar at Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, 2020,' and 'Betye Saar at L.A. Louver, 2026,' credited respectively to the Saar family, Kimberly Davis and Maddy Inez.
The wording of the announcement centers Saar’s stature as an artist whose work could not be reduced to a single category or style. While the newsletter does not enumerate her exhibitions, media or major works, it identifies the themes that shaped the gallery’s understanding of her practice: identity, vision and spirituality. Those terms have long defined public discussion of Saar’s work and situate the tribute within the broader history of Black and feminist artistic practice in Los Angeles.
The gallery’s note did not include memorial plans or further programming, and it did not announce new dates or venues. It instead served as an institutional farewell from a gallery that had known Saar through family ties and had seen her in person as recently as April, when she visited the exhibition by Alison Saar at L.A. Louver.
