Betye Saar

Born 1926 in Los Angeles, California

From Wikipedia:

Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926) is an African American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, which engaged myths and stereotypes about race and femininity. Her work is considered highly political, as she challenged negative ideas about African Americans throughout her career; Saar is best known for her art work that critiques American racism toward Blacks.

From artnet.com:

Betye Saar is an American artist known for assemblage and collage works. With a found-object process like that of Joseph Cornell and Robert Rauschenberg, Saar explores both the realities of African-American oppression and the mysticism of symbols through the combination of everyday objects. “I'm the kind of person who recycles materials but I also recycle emotions and feelings,” the artist has explained. “And I had a great deal of anger about the segregation and the racism in this country.” Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, and her work tackles racism through the appropriation and recontextualization of African-American folklore and icons, as seen in the seminal The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972), a wooden box containing a doll of a stereotypical “mammy” figure. Born on July 30, 1926, in Los Angeles, CA, she studied at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. Today, her works are held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others. Saar lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.