Martin Puryear

Martin Puryear, born in 1941, American sculptor, whose skillfully hand-crafted works blend African, Asian, and Western artistic traditions. Puryear combines traditional handicrafts, such as woodworking and basketry, with basic, geometric forms for his sculpture.

The oldest of seven siblings raised in Washington, D.C., Puryear showed an interest in art from an early age. He studied biology and art at Catholic University in Washington, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1963. From 1964 to 1966 he served with the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, Africa, where he taught biology, French, and English while learning traditional carpentry techniques from local craftspeople. From 1966 to 1968 Puryear lived in Stockholm, Sweden, entering the Swedish Royal Academy of Art to learn printmaking, and studying Scandinavian woodworking privately. In 1971 Puryear earned his master's degree in sculpture from Yale University in Connecticut. There he studied with visiting artists Robert Morris and Richard Serra, both American abstract sculptors who emphasized the importance of the artistic process. After a fire destroyed his Brooklyn, New York, studio in 1977, Puryear moved to Chicago.

Puryear's work often borrows forms and techniques from the architecture and art of nonindustrialized cultures— from Asian yurts (circular huts) to African baskets—adapting them to the more formal and abstract aims of modern art. His sculptures are always finely crafted, though the forms may be rough in appearance. Lever #2 (1987-1988, Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland), for example, combines a gangly basket structure with a long, curving tail. Maroon (1987-1988, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin) is a more compact, earthy form crafted of pine and yellow poplar, as well as steel mesh and tar. Puryear has also created ambitious outdoor installations (large works that are constructed in a specific place, transforming it into a sculpture). One of these, Bodark Ark (1982, University Park, Illinois), a vast curving pathway 392 feet in diameter, was influenced by the 1960s earthworks movement, which featured gigantic artworks that became part of the landscape.