1971–1979 In 1971, Puryear was hired to teach at the
historically black Fisk University in Tennessee, having been offered the position by art department chair
David Driskell. Puryear staged his first solo art exhibition in the United States in January 1972 at the Henri 2 Gallery in Washington. The show received positive coverage from local critics. Puryear staged his second solo exhibition at Henri 2 Gallery in 1973. He also left Fisk in 1973 and moved to
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In 1974, he accepted a job offer at the
University of Maryland, College Park, and began spending half of each week in both New York and Maryland. In 1977, following a devastating fire in his Brooklyn studio, Puryear moved to Chicago and began teaching at the University of Illinois. In the summer of 1977, Puryear developed an outdoor installation for
Artpark in
Niagara County, New York. His work,
Box and Pole, consisted of a 100 foot tall wooden pole placed next a 54-inch wooden cube and opened to the public in August 1977. The same month, he opened a two-room exhibition at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, his first solo museum show. He exhibited a seventeen foot tall
yurt-like wooden structure covered in animal
hides that visitors could enter in the first room, along with a series of smaller sculptures in the second room. In 1979, Puryear was included in the
Whitney Biennial at New York's
Whitney Museum. He also staged a solo exhibition at Protetch-McIntosh Gallery in Washington in 1979, showing a number of circular sculptures hung flat on the wall, made of various types of wood.
1980–1989 In 1980, Puryear opened a small solo exhibition at the
Joslyn Art Museum in Nebraska. He exhibited five new wood and stone sculptures, all abstract variations of a form similar to a mound or shark's tooth. The same year, several of Puryear's wall-based wood circle sculptures were featured in the traveling group exhibition
Afro-American Abstraction, a show exploring contemporary abstract art by African Americans, curated by
April Kingsley and originating at the
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. He participated in the Whitney Biennial again in 1981. Puryear staged a solo exhibition in February 1982 at Washington's McIntosh/Drysdale Gallery, showing new circular, wall-based works made of wood. Most of the sculptures comprised partial or imperfect circles hung on the wall, each with different stained or painted surface techniques and colors. During the Summer of 1982, Puryear worked on a commission for
Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, creating a permanent public sculpture commemorating the university's 150th anniversary, which was unveiled in October 1982. His commissioned sculpture,
Sentinel, a large wall-like concrete and stone form with rocks embedded in its surface, was funded in part by a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts. Also that Summer, he completed a commission for
Governors State University in Illinois, building a large-scale
land art piece titled
Bodark Arc. The work consisted of two pathways in the form of a broad arc bisected by a straight line, with each path leading to a cast bronze chair sculpture. He travelled to Japan in October 1983 using funds from his Guggenheim grant, where he studied religious and residential architecture as well as traditional Japanese crafts. The
University Gallery at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst organized the first traveling museum survey of Puryear's work in 1984, exhibiting his art from the previous ten years. The same year, Puryear was included in the group exhibition
"Primitivism" in 20th Century Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a controversial exhibition aiming to explore the connections between 20th century western art and mainly non-western, so-called primitive art. He showed a large wall piece made of wire, his first wall-based work in that material. In January 1985, Puryear opened his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at
Margo Leavin Gallery, showing a range of new sculptures including works from his ''Boy's Toys
series, all comprising small wooden forms attached to wooden rods, which several critics visually compared to phalluses or toilet plungers. He exhibited several of his Boy's Toys'' sculptures in a solo show in August 1985 at the
University Art Museum, Berkeley, as part of the museum's
MATRIX exhibition series. Puryear staged a solo exhibition at Chicago's Donald Young Gallery in October 1985. He presented the show across two gallery locations, exhibiting wall-based sculptures in one gallery and several large freestanding works in a separate location. The same year, he completed a commission for the
River Road station in Chicago, permanently installing
River Road Ring. The work, a monumental wooden circle sculpture, was suspended from the ceiling in the station's open atrium. Also in 1985, Puryear submitted a final design for a commission titled
Arc at
York College in Queens. The sculpture, completed in the ensuing three years, comprised a large skeletal form of copper tubes suspended from the ceiling in a long, narrow space in the college's interior walking mall. In 1986, Puryear married Jeanne Gordon, an artist and classical pianist. The
Chicago Cultural Center organized a ten-year survey of Puryear's work in February 1987. He opened a solo exhibition in April 1987 at the
Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery in
Pittsburgh, showing several sculptures and drawings. In September 1987, Puryear presented another solo show at Donald Young Gallery in Chicago, primarily centered around a monumental work stretching 30 feet across the gallery, comprising a skeletal cone made from reeds attached to an oblong form of wire mesh covered in tar. He staged a solo show at New York's McKee Gallery in November 1987, his first commercial gallery show in the city. In October 1988, he participated in a four-artist show at the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington as part of the
Spectrum exhibition series, showing a new bird-like iron sculpture as well as several older works. He was commissioned by New York's
Brooklyn Museum in November 1988 to create an installation for the museum's large atrium, reworking two previous monumental wood and mixed media pieces, one vertical and one horizontal, to fit the tall space. Puryear also completed a commission for the newly opened
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 1988 titled
Ampersand, comprising two large tapered granite columns, one upside down and one right side up, which framed an entrance to the garden. Puryear staged another solo exhibition at Margo Leavin Gallery in L.A. in April 1989, showing a number of new wood sculptures. He was also included in the Whitney Biennial again in April 1989. In July 1989, Puryear was awarded the
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In October 1989, Puryear represented the United States at the
São Paulo Biennial in Brazil, becoming the first black artist to represent the United States with a solo show at a major international biennial. His presentation, curated by
Kellie Jones and featuring nine large sculptures mostly made of wood, was awarded the grand prize of the biennial.
1990–1999 In 1990, Puryear was the inaugural participant in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's
Connections exhibitions series, creating new work in response to art from the museum's collection. Taking inspiration from a 17th-century painting of a falcon, he built a wooden yurt structure with gridded wooden slats, surrounded by abstract birdlike works made from wood, iron, bronze, and rawhide, all arranged on ledges on the walls. The
Art Institute of Chicago mounted a twenty-year traveling retrospective of Puryear's art in 1991, featuring forty works. The same year, Puryear was introduced to the choreographer
Garth Fagan and began a collaboration on Fagan's dance work
Griot New York. Puryear designed the elaborate sculptural wooden sets for the piece, a reflection on the African diasporic community and culture of New York City, which premiered at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1991. He participated in
Documenta 9 in
Kassel, Germany, in June 1992, installing a sculpture of a chained animal in a cage. Puryear staged a solo exhibition in March 1995 at McKee Gallery, his first in New York since 1987. He showed four new sculptures, including several bulbous circular wood sculptures and a tall columnar work. Also in 1995, Puryear completed a commission in
Battery Park City, installing two large stainless steel pylon sculptures on the shoreline at the
North Cove Marina. In 1996, Puryear completed a commission for Wanås Konst, an outdoor sculpture park in a forest at Sweden's
Wanås Castle. His sculpture
Meditation in a Beech Forest consisted of a 16 foot tall abstract biomorphic form covered in a thatch material traditionally used for roofs in the region. He completed another commission in 1997 at the
University of Washington's physics and astronomy buildings, installing
Everything that Rises, a monumental abstract bronze sculpture shaped like an elongated hourglass. Also in 1997,
The New School opened a new courtyard plaza in
Greenwich Village designed by Puryear in collaboration with
Michael Van Valkenburgh. The space featured benches by Puryear made from metal, granite, and wood, as well as extensive landscaping and tree plantings. Puryear was commissioned by the federal
General Services Administration in the mid-1990s to create a sculpture for the new
Ronald Reagan Building in Washington's
Federal Triangle area, although work was temporarily suspended on the project in 1996 amidst a budget shortfall. His work
Bearing Witness, a monumental abstract bronze sculpture, was completed in 1998 and permanently installed in a plaza outside the building. In 1999, Puryear completed
That Profile, a public sculpture commissioned for the
Getty Center in Los Angeles. The work, installed at the arrival plaza for the museum's
tram system, comprises a tall, oblong skeletal form made of long steel tubes joined with bronze. In November 1999, he completed a commission in the
Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, for the , an annual arts festival in Paris. His commissioned installation,
This Mortal Coil, consisted of a monumental wooden spiral form within a wooden frame, displayed in the circular chapel building.
2000–2009 In 2000, Puryear collaborated with
Arion Press to design a deluxe reissue of the novel
Cane, originally published at the beginning of the
Harlem Renaissance, after meeting Arion's founder
Andrew Hoyem at a print fair. Puryear designed a multi-toned wooden slipcase for the book and seven abstract woodcut prints that were bound in each copy. Puryear staged a traveling survey in 2001 at the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, exhibiting twelve large sculptures. He staged a solo exhibition at McKee Gallery in New York in 2002, showing four new wood sculptures. In the early 2000s, Puryear served as a jury member for the competition to design the
September 11 Memorial in New York, which announced a winning design in January 2004. He opened a survey exhibition at the
Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin in 2004, his first solo exhibition in the country, presenting sculptures from the previous two decades. In 2006, he mounted a solo show at Donald Young Gallery in Chicago, his first exhibition in the city in fourteen years. New York's
Museum of Modern Art organized a traveling thirty-year retrospective in 2007 of Puryear's work. The same year, the
American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Puryear its gold medal for sculpture.
2010–2019 In 2012, president
Barack Obama awarded Puryear the
National Medal of Arts. Puryear also mounted another solo show at McKee Gallery in 2012, exhibiting around a dozen new sculptures, including several that appeared like wheeled wooden carts. Puryear staged a solo exhibition at
Matthew Marks Gallery in New York in 2014. He showed nine new sculptures and two works on paper, all visually based on the
phrygian cap, a well-known symbol of freedom and emancipation from slavery. The same year, he completed work on
Slavery Memorial at
Brown University, a stone and iron sculpture of broken chain links permanently installed on the school's campus. In 2015, the
Morgan Library & Museum in New York premiered a traveling exhibition of Puryear's drawings and works on paper, titled
Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions. Puryear installed
Big Bling, a monumental wood, fiberglass, and gold leaf sculpture, in New York's
Madison Square Park in 2016 for several months as part of the park's public art program. The sculpture consisted of a forty foot tall skeletal wooden form covered with a chainlink fence, topped with a massive gold shackle. In 2017, he staged a forty-year retrospective of more than thirty works at London's
Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, his first solo show at a nonprofit institution in the United Kingdom. Puryear represented the United States at the
58th Venice Biennale in 2019 with an exhibition commissioned by
Brooke Kamin Rapaport, senior curator of Madison Square Park's public art program. His exhibition
Liberty/Libertà in the
American pavilion featured eight abstract sculptural works exploring themes of slavery and freedom, including a work dedicated to
Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman whom American president
Thomas Jefferson owned and is alleged to have fathered several children with.
2020–present In 2021, Puryear staged another solo show at Matthew Marks Gallery, exhibiting five sculptures from his Venice exhibition along with one new work, a large bronze basket sculpture that he had previously made in wood in several iterations. The
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opened a traveling survey of Puryear's career in 2025 titled
Martin Puryear: Nexus, highlighting the variety of materials used in his sculptures. Also in 2025, Puryear was included in the exhibition
Monuments at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles exploring the
removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. He exhibited an abstract work titled
Tabernacle, which was visually similar to hats worn by soldiers in the
Civil War. On April 9, 2026, the
Obama Foundation announced that it had commissioned Puryear to create a work for the
Obama Presidential Center. Puryear’s work
Bending the Arc is a monumental sculpture that pays homage to
John Lewis. ==Artwork==