Martin Puryear

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 BA from the 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, wire, and various types of metals-are a marriage of Minimalist logic with traditional ways of making. Puryear's evocations, dreamlike exploration in abstract forms reattain vestigial elements of utility from everyday objects found in the world. In "Ladder for Booker T. Washington," Puryear built a spindly, meandering ladder out of jointed ash wood. More than thirty-five feet tall, the ladder narrows toward the top, creating a distorted sense of perspective that evokes an unattainable or illusionary goal. In the massive stone piece, "Untitled," Puryear enlisted a local stonemason to help him construct a building-like structure on a ranch in Northern California. On one side of the work is an eighteen-foot-high wall-on the other side, an inexplicable stone bulge. A favorite form that occurs in Puryear's work, the thick-looking stone bulge is surprisingly hollow, coloring the otherwise sturdy shape with qualities of uncertainity, emptiness, and loss. Martin Puryear represented the United States at the Sao Paolo Biennial in 1989, where his exhibition won the Grand Prize. Puryear is the recipient of numerous awards and was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Art 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.

Bio attained from PBS Art:21

I believe that Martin Puryear is an incredible artist. His ability to work with hard objects and give them a certain movement and fluidity that I have never seen before. His minimalist approach is perfect for the amount of curvature that his sculptures posses. He also gives his work a certain craftsmanship that makes you think that it was machine made.