Born, 1941 in Washington, DC

Martin Puryear graduated from Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., and then joined the Peace Corps, traveling to Sierra Leone. He also studied art at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art, and attained his MFA in sculpture from Yale University. Puryear has had an illustrious career and has exhibited at numerous museums and galleries across the United States and internationally. His accomplishments are far too lengthy to list here, but some of the highlights of his career include a mid-career retrospective organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, which traveled to the Hirshhorn in Washington, DC, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania. He has created many public installations including for the City of Chicago, Washington D.C., New York, as well as for private collections including the John P. Getty Museum, Los Angeles. He exhibits at McKee Gallery in New York, Donald Young Gallery in Chicago and Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles. He currently lives and works in upstate New York.

- Text courtesy of Paulson Press