Meet Martin Puryear

Read About the Artist Martin Puryear

In his youth, Martin Puryear was interested in traditional crafts, making objects such as tools, boats, furniture, and musical instruments. When he enrolled in college at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1959, he started studying biology, but later switched to art. Afterward, he joined the Peace Corps, which sent him to volunteer in Sierra Leone. There, West African carpenters taught him about their traditions.

Although Puryear was initially trained in painting and drawing, his desire to “make things rather than representations of them” led him to pursue sculpture instead. When he got back from his time in the Peace Corps, Puryear pursued his interest in Scandinavian design and woodworking by moving to Stockholm, Sweden, to attend the Swedish Royal Academy of Art.

When Puryear returned to the United States, new developments in sculpture such as Minimalism influenced the development of his art. He began using craftsmanship to construct forms that often represent contradictions, such as the play of interior and exterior forms, or the tension between geometry and organic irregularity.

In the mid 1970s, Puryear set up a studio in Brooklyn, NY. A fire destroyed it in 1977, and he relocated to Chicago, IL the following year. He later moved to the Hudson Valley in New York.

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• What does Puryear mean when he says he wanted to “make things rather than representations of them”? How is this different from painting or drawing?
• The text says Puryear makes forms that “often represent contradictions, such as the play of interior and exterior forms, or the tension between geometry and organic irregularity.” What do you think this means?

An art movement associated with a group of New York City artists working in the 1960s. Minimalist art is characterized by simple or reduced abstract structures and geometric forms—free of all reference to the figure or to nature.