Martin L. Puryear (1941) is an American artist known for his devotion to traditional craft. Working in wood and bronze, among other media, his reductive technique and meditative approach challenge the physical and poetic boundaries of his materials.
Born in Washington, D.C., Martin Puryear began exploring traditional craft methods in his youth, making tools, boats, musical instruments, and furniture. After receiving a BA in Fine Art from the Catholic University of America in 1963, Puryear spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone where he learned local woodworking techniques. From 1966–1968, he studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm, returning to the United States afterward to enroll in the graduate program for sculpture at Yale University. Although he discovered Minimalism at a formative period in his development, Puryear would ultimately reject its impersonality and formalism.
After earning his MFA from Yale, Puryear began teaching at Fisk University in Nashville and University of Maryland in College Park. In 1977, following a devastating fire in his Brooklyn studio, Puryear had a solo show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. Shortly after he moved to Chicago.
Often associated with both Minimalism and Formalist sculpture, Puryear rejects that his work is ever non-referential or objective. The pure and direct imagistic forms born from his use of traditional craft are allusive and poetic, as well as deeply personal. Visually, they encounter the history of objects and the history of their making, suggesting public and private narratives including those of the artist, race, ritual, and identity.
His work is widely exhibited and collected both in the United States and internationally. Included amongst Puryear's public works is his large-scale composition Ark (1988) which was designed for York College and can be viewed presently on the school's campus in Queens, New York. Puryear has also created several permanent outdoor works, such as Bodark Arc (1982) and Pavilion in the Trees (1993), and collaborated with landscape architects on the design of public spaces. A 30-year survey, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and which traveled to the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, included installations of some of the artist's largest works, notably the dramatically foreshortened 36-foot Ladder for Booker T. Washington (1996) made from a single, split sapling ash tree.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Martin Puryear. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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Mr. Martin L. Puryear
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Self, 1978
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Bower, 1980
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Desire, 1981
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Sharp and Flat, 1987
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Verge, 1987
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Lever #3, 1989
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Dumb Luck, 1990
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Bearing Witness at the APE
Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC, 1994
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Untitled, 1994
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Horsefly, 1996-2000
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Untitled, 1997
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Vessel, 1997–2002
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That Profile, 1999
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Bona from Cane, 2000
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Karintha from Cane, 2000
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Untitled, 2005
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Connecting
US Embassy in Beijing, 2008
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Question?, 2010
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Heaven Three Ways Exquisite Corpse, 2011
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Night Watch, 2011
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Phrygian Spirit, 2012–14
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Big Phrygian, 2014
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Untitled, 2014
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| Maquette for Big Bling, 2014 |
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Big Bling, 2016
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| Big Bling, 2016 |
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Métissage Camouflage, 2016
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New Voortrekker, 2018
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A Column for Sally Hemings, 2019
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Cloister-Redoubt or Cloistered Doubt, 2019
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Cloister-Redoubt or Cloistered Doubt, detail, 2019
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Swallowed Sun (Monstrance and Volute) 2019
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| Swallowed Sun (Monstrance and Volute) 2019 |
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Tabernacle, 2019
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