Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar

From theatrical costumes to leather accessories and jewelry, Saar’s early wearable artworks are as transformative as her assemblages.

Organized around Betye Saar’s early work in costume and jewelry design during the 1960s and 1970s, Let’s Get It On explores how this formative period profoundly shaped her pioneering work in assemblage and installation. Through original drawings, essays, archival materials and installation images, the book traces Saar’s evolution from designer to artist, revealing the enduring connections between her wearable creations and her broader visual language. It features newly commissioned scholarship alongside rare photographs, sketches, jewelry, garments and ephemera from Saar’s personal archives, offering fresh insight into the artist’s lifelong engagement with materials, memory and Black cultural expression. The book also includes a custom-designed sewing pattern by Betye Saar, inspired by her studio practice. This set features comprehensive instructions, precision-cut pattern pieces and an exclusive artist-designed iron-on: everything you need to spark your own creative journey. Let’s Get It On provides an invaluable resource for understanding the full scope of Saar’s creative practice and her influence across generations.

Betye Saar (born 1926) is renowned for pioneering Black feminism and West Coast assemblage in her visionary artistic practice, through dense, complexly referential objects. For over seven decades, Saar’s work has led dialogues on race and gender, reflecting changing cultural and political contexts. Most recently, solo presentations have been hosted by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Saar’s work was prominently featured in We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 at the Brooklyn Museum and in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at Tate Modern.

Introduction by Julie Roberts. Preface by Elspeth Carruthers. Text by Neil Lane, Dieter Roelstraete, Alexandria Ryahl, Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, Mary Skarbek, Zoé Whitley. Interview by CCH Pounder.