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Martin Puryear (born May 23, 1941) is an
African American sculptor. He works in media including wood, stone, tar, and wire,Karen O. Janovy, Janice Driesbach, Daniel A. Siedell, Norman A. Geske,David Cateforis,
Sculpture from the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, p239. ISBN 080327629X and his work is a union of
minimalism and traditional crafts.
Life
Martin Puryear was born in
Washington, D.C., and he spent his youth studying practical crafts, learning how to build guitars and furniture. He received a B.A. from
The Catholic University of America in 1963 and was a
Peace Corps volunteer in
Sierra LeoneHorst Woldemar Janson, Anthony F. Janson,
History of Art: The Western Tradition, Prentice Hall, 2004, p882. ISBN 0131828959 from 1964 to 1966. In the late 1960s, he studied printmaking in
Sweden and assisted a master cabinet-maker. He entered the
Yale University graduate sculpture program in 1968.
His first solo exhibition was held in the late 1970s at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art. In the 1980s he participated in two
Whitney Biennials and received a
Guggenheim Fellowship. He received a
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1989.
In 2003, he...
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