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Martin Puryear Freedom & Containment



Copyright Page Simon & Schuster Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020 Copyright © 2021 by Martin Puryear All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Simon & Schuster and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Design: Connor Snyder Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Puryear, Martin Martin Puryear / (insert additional title if appropriate) p. cm.1. Puryear, Martin—Sources. 2. Puryear, Martin—Notebooks, Sketches, etc. I. Title. N6537.L54 A2 2021 709’.2—dc21 00-028026 ISBN 0-684-83417-0



Table of Contents 3 Preface 4 Introduction 8 Gallery 13 Bibliography 15 Index 16 Appendix 17 Glossary 18 Additional Reading

Heterogenous Objects: The Sculpture of Martin Puryear “Puryear is, above all, a maker,” declared the late critic Robert In an era in which the majority of sculptural production plays By Jessica Born in 1941, in Washington, D.C., Puryear grew up in the Hughes of Time magazine.1 “What makes him different is his itself out in the strategies of commodity art which largely Ann Maxwell early days of desegregation, attending a segregated public hand. Puryear makes his sculptures – of cedar, oak and hickory, involve the appropriation and manipulation of existing cultural school until the sixth grade, when his family moved to the of poplar and of ash – with planes and saws and spokeshaves, goods, Puryear’s “craftsmanly approach” to sculpture, a At first this kind of log-cabin more affluent northeast quadrant. He found refuge from the with a cabinetmaker’s skill. Somehow he’s restored an mode of physical making in which the sculptor’s hand is the ‘minimalism’ seems an ironic city’s grim segregationist politics by spending the majority unfamiliar warmth to the look of current art,” a critic for the primary agent of production, is particularly unique. Puryear’s comment on 1960s sculp- of his childhood in inner-city Washington reading up on Washington Post concurred.2 “Above all, there is a personal sculpture is widely appreciated today for its traditional craft ture, but it is really part of topics such as the natural sciences, Native American culture, touch, with faint echoes of African-American roots and ancient and technical competency, rich display of various woods and a specifically ‘70s sculptural archery and ornithology, and drawing specific birds and cultures, setting him apart from other mainstream sculptors. its formal allusions to the vehicles and vessels of non-Western practice, seen in work by animal species. In addition to these interests, Puryear also In an age of high-tech fabrication, his is a labor-intensive cultures. In a manner distinct from most other mainstream Jackie Ferrara, Jackie Winsor, pursued the arts; while still in elementary school, he attended craftsmanly approach, incorporating folk traditions and contemporary sculptors, Puryear constructs his abstract yet and others. It involves work- the children’s art classes of local artist, Cornelia Yuditsky motifs,” wrote another for Cleveland’s Plain Dealer in 1993.3 highly referential sculptures with layers of wood that he cuts ing with intrinsically simple and frequented many of Washington’s museums, including In a declarative statement on his “craftsmanly approach” to and assembles together, usually around a hollow center. While shapes, then overlaying them the National Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Museum of sculpture, Puryear finally proclaimed: “I am fundamentally a Puryear’s handwork and appeal to preindustrial materials with supplementary signs of History and Technology, the Washington Zoo where he drew maker, in the physical sense, in the literal physical sense.”4 appear specifically misplaced in our modern present, these the artist’s physical activity animals, and the Natural History Museum which impacted practices were actually in close affiliation with those loosely and obsessiveness.5 him enormously. Books were also a staple of his curious diet: 1 Robert Hughes, “Delight in A Shaping Hand,” Time 158, no.1 (July 2001): 78. identified as postminimalist around the time of his emergence “During the last two years of high school and all through 2 Paul Richard, “He Sawed & Conquered—Sculptor Martin Puryear’s Homecoming at in the early 1970s. Countering the austere geometry college I worked after school in a public library, and so for and anonymous surfaces of minimalism, these practices seven years was surrounded by books. I read a lot, on a variety the Hirshhorn,” Washington Post, February 5, 1992, B1. involved the performance of manual procedures on such raw of subjects. This has not stopped,” Puryear reminisced.6 3 Helen Cullinan, “Getting to Know Award-Winning Sculptor Martin Puryear,” The substances as rope, leather, and felt, producing an aesthetic with which art historian and critic Jonathan Crary identified Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 26,1993, ARTS & LIVING, 41. Puryear’s own handmade constructions, 4 Martin Puryear, as quoted in Leonard Lopate Show, November 29, 2007, “Sculptor Martin Puryear at MoMA,” Leonard Lopate in conversation with Martin Puryear and curator John Elderfield. 4

Supplementing his book Puryear applied to the Peace knowledge with practical Corps after graduating experience, he made things college in 1963, for which such as classical guitars, small he served two years in the boats, and furniture, with his remote village of Segbwema, hands and the aid of instruc- in southern Sierra Leone. Of tive books. Though he con- this experience, he recalled centrated in painting at the matter-of-factly, Catholic University of Amer- ica in Washington, he took I was in Sierra Leone on the a required sculpture course. West Coast. I was teaching There, he began to adapt his in a small mission school, acquired woodworking and way up in the country and guitar making skills to his the isolation was very good experiments with sculpture. for me. I would occasionally However, before his spatial get the odd art magazines turn to the three-dimensional from home, but I dropped volumes of constructed sculp- out of what was going on in ture was complete, Puryear art. I drew incessantly and I would carve into the shallow made woodcuts. It was a very recesses of woodblocks simple, non-technical way made for printing. to come to grips with myself and to monitor my progress and change it.7 Puryear cut graphic portraits of his immediate surroundings into the flat grounds of woodblocks, monitoring his “progress” 5 Jonathan Crary, “Martin Puryear’s Sculpture,” Artforum 18, no.2 (October 1979): 29. from realism toward abstraction: “I continued to copy nature 6 Puryear, as quoted in a letter to the author, December 14, 2010. during this period, but in a more fragmentary way. Before I 8 Puryear, as quoted in Richard Powell, “A Conversation with Martin Puryear,” in Martin went to West Africa I thought of myself as a painter. I didn’t really focus on sculpture until I’d left Sierra Leone, and most Puryear, ed. John Elderfield [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007], 101. of my work since then has been abstract,” he recounted in a recent interview.8 Parallel to his march toward abstraction, Puryear edged his way toward construction, the joinery techniques of which he adapted from African carpenters. In the wake of his new focus on sculpture, Puryear abandoned painting. Harnessing abstraction to construction, he would go on to build abstract forms, the linear scaffolding of which was inspired by the carpentry of Scandinavian furniture design that he encountered in Sweden. 5

Puryear enrolled in the Inspired by Krenov’s example, Upon his return to the States, Puryear carried his handcraft A great deal is known about printmaking program of Puryear finally “put the build- with him to the graduate program at Yale. “I wanted to Puryear’s trips to Africa and Stockholm’s Royal Swedish ing and art impulse togeth- understand what was happening in (the United States) and Sweden in the early phase Academy in 1966. Of his er.”10 Working constructively, plug into that,” he revealed.12 While studying with sculptor of his career and the various move up to the frigid north, utilizing fine woodworking James Rosati and visiting artists Morris, and Richard Serra, craft traditions that he he recalled, techniques typically applied and Salvatore Scarpitta, and taking courses in African and learned and adapted from to furniture design, the sculp- pre-Columbian art with Robert Farris Thompson and Michael their local peoples to his art. I wanted a place in Scandina- tor began to cut, shape and Kampen, respectively, the newly minted sculptor learned that However, critics have often via. I had been interested for join wood of diverse textures, “what was happening” on the New York art scene largely treated such travels as the a long time in Scandinavian into abstract forms in the included minimalism and postminimalist responses to it. sole creative inspiration of his woodworking. I was interest- late 1960s. Thus, succeeding Sympathetic to these responses which sought to recover sculpture and thereby, its very ed in their furniture designing years of experimentation with the manual process and so-called natural materials lost to subject. As a 1984 review in the sixties, Danish and the two-dimensional media sculpture with the appearances of Duchamp’s readymade and reads, Many artists are cur- Finnish design in particular. I of painting and drawing, and the Constructivist model in early twentieth-century modernity, rently working in a style that thought it was really innova- printmaking, Puryear finally Puryear seized the material experience of physical making deliberately reaches back to tive, respectful of the material committed to sculpture. “I with aplomb. Yet, as apparent in Puryear’s sculpture, this the archaic or primitive, but and function, and I wanted to decided that building was process of making produces forms that reference the artifacts often their work is decora- see what that was all about. a legitimate way for me to and shelters of foreign cultures, the likes of which find their tive, cluttered, and romantic. I spent a lot of time in Den- make sculpture, that it wasn’t sources in Puryear’s books, travels and museum visits. Puryear, on the other hand, is mark. In Stockholm I worked necessary to work in the the real thing, an artist who with James Krenov who had traditional sculptural methods 9 Ibid. has studied so-called “prim- a very strong influence on of carving or casting, said 10 Puryear, as quoted in Hugh M. Davies and Helaine Posner, “Conversations with Martin itive” sources and digested my work. He was a man who Puryear.11 An alternative to them to the point where they had enormous respect for the the conventional processes Puryear,” in Martin Puryear (Amherst: University Gallery, University of Massachusetts are completely integrated material and an interesting of “carving,” “casting,” and at Amherst, 1984), 30. in his work. Puryear is a person.9 modeling of industrial metals, 11 Ibid. Chicago-based sculptor in Puryear’s construction treated 12 Puryear, as quoted in Swift and Wittenberg, “An Interview with Martin Puryear,” 34. mid-career whose style has cut, shaped and joined layers 13 Christine Temin, “Puryear’s Primitive Sophistication,” The Boston Globe (July 7, 1984), been influenced more by his of wood as so many building page unknown. travels than his formal study.13 blocks for sculpture. 6

Echoing these sentiments, New York Times writer Michael Drawing up an analogous “In their materials, technique, and presence, the works of Brenson extended further priority to Puryear’s foreign travels relationship between his Martin Puryear epitomize current ideas and directions in as an influence on his art. “Throughout the work, there is a African American identity and American sculpture,” so wrote curator and critic Kellie Jones strong feeling for craft and link with tribal sculpture, which his sculpture, Puryear argues in the wake of Puryear’s sole representation of the United reflect the two crucial years Puryear, who is 43 years old spent, that both are inherently States in the 1989 São Paolo Bienal, where he was awarded as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone,” he wrote.14 “hybrid,” cross-bred between the grand prize.17 “Though a personal language that is Seconding this remark, he later said: “The importance of the “complicated and convo- at once poetic and allusive as well as formally complex, Puryear’s two years in Sierra Leone as Peace Corps volunteer, luted” influences of western Martin Puryear explores not only exterior physical but also from 1964 to 1966, can hardly be overemphasized...The years and non-western geogra- interior psychological space, and reflects a new sense of in Sierra Leone provided him with a rich source of imagery, phy. As Puryear’s biography wholeness and balance, a contemporary American sculpture shaping his feeling for wood, for crafts, and for a particular narrates, his commitment to that benefits from pluralism and internationalism,” she approach to craftsmanship – that of the carpenter, not the handcraft actually originated continued.18 Synthesizing minimalism’s reductive forms and carver.”15 The precedence given to foreign travel as the source in his childhood experiments earthwork’s natural materials with global sources, Puryear of this “feeling for craft” in Puryear’s sculpture has not always making guitars in America thus achieves a thoroughly integrated sculpture whose bode well with Puryear whose practice, according to a 1991 and has grown along with his capacity for containing difference within itself is more interview, has been evolving in the States as well as abroad: travels, domestic and abroad, characteristically American than commonly believed. ever since. As critics rightly The time in Sierra Leone was 25 years ago, and it’s spoken point out, Puryear certainly (Adapted from “Heterogenous Objects: The Sculptures about as if it were yesterday. That and my time in Sweden are has drawn upon ethnograph- of Martin Puryear” by Jessica Ann Maxwell, Princeton the two determinants; they have become the myth behind ic material, artifacts and University, June 2013) the work. I find it’s a little unfortunate because it eclipses the collections as artistic sources fact that I’ve been working and changing for all of the time for his sculpture. However, 14 Michael Brenson, “Sculpture: Puryear Postminimalism,” The New York Times (August 10, 1984), C24. since. I mean, I have an enormous admiration for tribal art of these foreign sources are 15 Michael Brenson, “Maverick Sculptor Makes Good,” New York Times (November 1, 1987), 90. all kinds and I had an incredible interest in African sculpture. distilled and mixed with con- 16 Puryear, as quoted in Alan G. Artner, “On Form and Function: The Finely Sculpted Thoughts of Martin Puryear,” Chicago Tribune, Being in Africa made me feel how American I am. I think I temporary trends in American always knew it but was confronted with it when there. A lot sculpture as well. November 3, 1991, section 13, 10. of Afro-Americans have the feeling that Africa is ‘home’ in a 17 Kellie Jones, curator, “Martin Puryear,” in Martin Puryear: 29th International Sao Paolo Bienal 1989. exh. cat. Jamaica, New York: certain sense. But we really are a hybrid people. We have a complicated and convoluted identity. The Western legacy is Jamaica Arts Center, 1989; reprinted in Kellie Jones, “Eye-Minded: Martin Puryear,” in Eye-Minded (North Carolina: Duke ours too.16 University Press, 2011). 18 Ibid. 6

GALLERY ARTWORK Untitled 7 DATE 2005 DIMENSIONS 63 x 60 x 54 inches MEDIUM White pine, wire, rattan

ARTWORK Night Watch DATE 2011 DIMENSIONS 116 x 122 x 48 inches MEDIUM Maple, Willow, OSB board ARTWORK Plenty’s Boast DATE 1994-1995 DIMENSIONS 68 inches x 83 inches x 9 feet 10 inches MEDIUM Red Cedar, Pine 8

ARTWORK Untitled DATE 2014 DIMENSIONS 174 ½ x 148 x 52 inches MEDIUM Hardwood saplings, cordage 9

“I am ambivalent about titles because I think they can close off people’s experience of the work if they stop at the name and go no further.” -Martin Puryear ARTWORK C.F.A.O. DATE 2006-2007 DIMENSIONS 8’ 4 ¾” x 6’ 5 ½” x 61” MEDIUM Painted and unpainted pine and found wheelbarrow 10

ARTWORK Question DATE 2010 DIMENSIONS 90 × 109¼ × 34½ inches MEDIUM Tulip poplar, pine, ash ARTWORK Sanctuary DATE 1982 DIMENSIONS 126 x 24 x 18 in. MEDIUM Pine, maple, and cherry 11

ARTWORK ARTWORK Cascade Phrygian Spirit DATE DATE 2013 2012-2014 DIMENSIONS DIMENSIONS 66 × 54¾ × 17 inches 58½ × 74¾ × 15¾ inches MEDIUM MEDIUM Alaskan yellow cedar Alaskan yellow cedar, holly, ebony, leather, string, milk paint 12

bibliography 18.) King, Elaine A. Martin Puryear: Sculpture and Works on Paper. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University Art Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, 1987. 1.) Artner, Alan G. “On Form and Function: The Finely Sculpted Thoughts of Martin Puryear,” Chi cago Tribune, November 3, 1991, section 13, p.10. 19.) Krauss, Rosalind. “Allusion and Illusion in Donald Judd,” Artforum 4, no. 9 (May 1966): 24-26. 2.) Baker, Kenneth. “Martin Puryear: Sympathy and Common Ground,” Artspace ( July–August 1992): 32-34. 20.) Krenov, James. With Wakened Hands: Furniture by James Krenov and Students. Fresno and 3.) Beckwourth, James Pierson. The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, Bethel: Cambium Press and Linden Publishing, Inc., 2000. scout, and pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians. Translated by Thomas D. Bonner. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856. 21.) Levi Strauss, David. “From Hand to Head and Back Again: Some Lines for Martin Puryear,” 4.) Benezra, Neal. Martin Puryear. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc, 1991. In Nunzio, Martin Puryear: forma lignea. Milano: Electa, 1997. 5.) Buchloh, Benjamin H.D. “Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” October 55 (Winter 1990), pp.105-143. 22.) Morris, Robert. Projects Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris. Cambridge, Massa- 6.) Crary, Jonathan. “Martin Puryear’s Sculpture.” Artforum 18, no. 2 (October 1979): 28-31. chusetts: MIT Press, 1994. 7.) Cullinan, Helen. “Getting to Know Award-Winning Sculptor Martin Puryear,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 26,1993, ARTS & LIVING, p.41. 23.) Noguchi, Isamu. “Meanings in Modern Sculpture,” Art News 48 (March 1949): 12-15, 55-6. 8.) Danto, Arthur C. “Art: Martin Puryear.” The Nation 256, no.1 (January 4-11, 1993): 30-32. 9.) Elderfield, John. Martin Puryear. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2007. 24.) Nordgren, Sune. Martin Puryear. Gateshead, United Kingdom: BALTIC, The Centre for 10.) English, Darby. How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Contemporary Art, 2003. MIT Press, 2007. 11.) Forgey, Benjamin. “Martin Puryear’s Show: An Artist Comes Home,” Evening Star, January 12, 25.) Ottinger, Didier. “The Chimeras of Martin Puryear,” Art Press 345 (May 2008): 59-62. 102 1972, p. B11. 99 12.) Fried, Michael. “Art and Objecthood,” In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago 26.) Patton, Sharon. African-American Art. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998. 13.) Golden, Deven, K., with essays by Patricia Fuller and Judith Russi Kirshner. Martin Puryear: 27.) Pincus, Robert L. “Sculpture of Martin Puryear Seduces the Eye and Mind: An Antidote to Public and Personal. Chicago: Chicago Office of Fine Arts, 1987. Bombastic Art,” The San Diego Tribune, Entertainment section, p. E4. 14.) Greenberg, Clement. Art and Culture: Critical Essays. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1961. 100 28.) Puryear, Martin. Recording of a lecture at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 15.) Hughes, Robert. “Art: Delight in a Shaping Hand.” Time 139, no.9 (March 2, 1992): 61-63. Maine, 1980. Museum of Modern Art Archives. 16.) Judd, Donald. “Specific Objects,” In Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. New York and Halifax: The Press of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1975. 29.) Pye, David. The Nature & Aesthetics of Design. Bethel, Connecticut: Cambium, 1978. 17.) Kimmelman, Michael. “Martin Puryear.” New York Times, December 2, 1988, p.C24. 30.) Schjeldahl, Peter. “Seeing Things: Shows of Martin Puryear and Georges Seurat,” The New 13 Yorker 83, no.35, November 12, 2007, pp. 94-95. 103 31.) Shearer, Linda. Young American Artists: 1978 Exxon National Exhibition. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1978. 32.) Sollins, Susan. Art: 21: Art in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. 33.) Tannous, David. “Martin Puryear at the Corcoran,” Art in America 67, no. 3 (May/June 1978): 130-131. 34.) Varnedoe, Kirk. “Contemporary Explorations,” in “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and Modern Art, ed. 35.) William Rubin. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 1984. 36.) Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.