Martin Puryear

Biography

Martin Puryear was born in Washington, D.C., in 1941. In his youth, he studied crafts and learned how to build guitars, furniture, and canoes through practical training and instruction. After earning his B.A. from Catholic University in Washington D.C., Puryear joined the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, and later attended the Swedish Royal Academy of Art. He received an MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 1971. Puryear's objects and public installations—in wood, stone, tar, wire, and various metals—are a marriage of Minimalist logic with traditional ways of making. Martin Puryear represented the United States at the São Paolo Bienal in 1989, where his exhibition won the Grand Prize. Puryear is the recipient of numerous awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture. Puryear was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1992 and received an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1994. Martin Puryear lives and works in the Hudson Valley region of New York.

Selected Works

Martin Puryear Drawing for Sanctuary, 1982 pencil on paper 16 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches

Martin Puryear Face Down, 2008 bronze 15 x 28 x 11 inches

Martin Puryear Untitled, 1994 wood 78 x 13 x 6 inches

Martin Puryear Untitled III (State I), 2002 color spitbite aquatint with softground and chine colle 35 x 28 inches ed. 5/25

Martin Puryear Untitled III (State 2), 2002 color spitbite aquatint with softground and chine colle 35 x 28 inches ed. 2/25

Martin Puryear Untitled V, 2005 Softground, drypoint etching with chine colle 29 x 34 inches ed. 28/40