Matthew Marks Gallery

Martin Puryear

Over the last five decades Martin Puryear has created a body of work based on abstract organic forms rich with psychological, cultural, and historical references. His labor-intensive sculptures are made by hand at his studio in upstate New York. They combine practices adapted from many different traditions, including wood carving, joinery, and boat building, as well as more recent technology. As a student, Puryear studied ornithology, falconry, and archery, and in the 1960s he volunteered with the Peace Corps in west Africa, where he educated himself in the region’s indigenous crafts. Since then he has continued to travel extensively, observing a range of cultures and their unique approaches to object making. “I think there are a number of levels at which my work can be dealt with and appreciated,” he has said. “It gives me pleasure to feel there’s a level that doesn’t require knowledge of or immersion in the aesthetic of a given time or place.”

Martin Puryear (b. 1941) was born in Washington, DC. His first one-person exhibition was in 1968, and since then he has exhibited throughout the world, including public commissions in Europe, Asia, and the United States. His work was featured in Documenta 9, and in 1989 he represented the United States at the São Paulo Bienal, where he was awarded the festival’s Grand Prize. In 2007 the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a survey of his work, which traveled to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In 2015 the Art Institute of Chicago organized an exhibition of fifty years of his works on paper, which traveled to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Puryear received a MacArthur Foundation award in 1989 and a National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2011. In 2019 he represented the United States at the 58th Venice Biennale.

Selected Works

Exhibitions

MARTIN PURYEAR

February 16–April 8, 2023

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

MARTIN PURYEAR

November 12, 2020–January 30, 2021

522 West 22nd Street & Online
New York & Online

MARTIN PURYEAR

November 8, 2014–January 10, 2015

522 West 22nd Street
502 West 22nd Street
New York

Group Exhibitions

LEIDY CHURCHMAN, ALEX DA CORTE, MICHEL MAJERUS, MERET OPPENHEIM, MARTIN PURYEAR, PAUL SIETSEMA

September 11–October 23, 2021

522 West 22nd Street
New York

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

November 8, 2019–January 18, 2020

523 West 24th Street
New York

ROSEBUD

July 13–August 24, 2019

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

THOMAS DEMAND, KATHARINA FRITSCH, ROBERT GOBER, BRICE MARDEN, KEN PRICE, MARTIN PURYEAR, CHARLES RAY, PAUL SIETSEMA, ANNE TRUITT, TERRY WINTERS

September 14–October 21, 2017

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

ROBERT ADAMS, VINCENT FECTEAU, ROBERT GOBER, MARTIN PURYEAR, CHARLES RAY, ANNE TRUITT, TERRY WINTERS

October 31, 2015–February 13, 2016

523 West 24th Street
New York

10 SCULPTURES

July 11–August 29, 2015

1062 North Orange Grove
7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

A DRAWING SHOW

October 4–November 29, 2014

526 West 22nd Street
New York

SCULPTURE
Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Martin Puryear, Charles Ray

February 8–April 19, 2014

523 West 24th Street
New York

Books

MARTIN PURYEAR

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS