Purvis Young

1943 - 2010

Purvis Young, born in Liberty City, FL near Miami, left the education system when young and spent his early years scraping together a meager living, undertaking numerous odd jobs. At the age of 21, he was imprisoned following a conviction for breaking and entering. Although he experimented with drawing in prison, it was on his release that Young was inspired to create art full time. He produced his first mural, “Goodbread Alley”, in the 1970s, nailing hundreds of painted panels onto the walls of disused buildings in a nearby town. This was the first work to bring him to the public’s attention. Young continued to create paintings on wooden panels, Formica plates, found boards, walls and even cars, making use of household paints, crayons, colored pens and pencils. His subjects covered a wide range of issues, but a human figure is usually depicted as the central character.  Themes include sex, social relationships and explorations of people, animals and objects, all executed in his gritty and intense style. The experience of the African American was, according to Young, his main inspiration. Young possessed a relentless creative drive and his total dedication produced hundreds of pictures over time. ¹