NYAB Event - Purvis Young “Five Works”

Purvis Young “Five Works”

P339 Gallery

This event has ended.

P339 Gallery presents the first in a series of 4 exhibitions of African and African-American contemporary and folk art guest-curated by Diego Cortez, a free-lance curator, advisor, editor and author. Previous curated exhibitions by Cortez include: “New York/New Wave,” PS1 (1981), “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Studio of the Street,” Deitch Projects (2006), “Photography and Depression,” New Orleans Museum of Art (2008) and “REPARATION: Contemporary Artists from New Orleans,” NOMA (2014). 

Purvis Young – Five Works presents four paintings on wood from the 1980s and one rare oversize album of 70 drawings (1992) by the late Miami artist. Purvis Young – Five Works will open to the public on Friday, February 13 and will close on Saturday, March 14.

Purvis Young was born in 1943 in Liberty City, Miami and died in Miami in 2010. His uncle introduced him to drawing but his interest quickly waned. He never attended high school. Young served three years (1961-64) in Raiford State Penitentiary where his interest in art reemerged by making drawings and studying art books. When released he produced thousands of small drawings which he later glued into discarded books and magazines found on the streets. Recurring themes in his work were angels, wild horses, and urban landscapes. Young moved to a vacant alley called Goodbread Alley in the Overtown neighborhood, whose African-American population of up to 30,000 residents was largely displaced by the construction of I-95.

In the 70s Young was inspired by the mural movements of Chicago and Detroit, and began to assemble an outdoor assemblage of painted works on found wood in Overtown. The popularity of Young’s enormous mural was immediate. He soon attracted collectors and well as the media which made him into a local folk hero. His work blossomed and many important folk art dealers and collectors began to collect his prolific production of art works. Young’s subject matter evolved to include civil rights marches and urban unrest, the Vietnam war, the Great Depression and Native American conflicts in the U.S. Young is credited with influencing art movements known as Social Expressionism or Urban Expressionism.

In 1999, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami purchased the entire content of his studio of almost 3000 pieces. They have donated much of it to U.S. museums and institutions, including 108 to Atlanta’s Morehouse College.

Media

• Painting
• Drawing

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