Martin Puryear returns repeatedly to forms and motifs he has used before-modifying them through changes in scale, proportion, or materials-in a continuous effort to extract new meanings. Though he has worked with stone, cast metal, and glass, his long-standing favorite material is wood. His love of wood stems from his exposure to African carving and carpentry traditions while a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone in the mid-1960s. He often combines different woods in a single sculpture, as in number 12 from the series Boy's Toys (1985), enjoying the interplay of textures and colors and the responsiveness of the woods to various carving and shaping techniques.
Puryear's works on view inside the museum and in the Garden share
similar elongated, usually cone-shaped forms tapering off from a broad
base. However, their various approaches to scale, materials, and
relationship to the viewer produce a range of responses. The two
columns in Ampersand (1987-1988), flanking the main entrance to the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, are a simplified version of the
square-to-circular transition found in the Boy's Toy piece; but their
massive scale and the brute quality of the granite make this work stand
in sharp contrast to the delicately sensual smaller sculpture.
commissioned by
Walker Art Center;
aquired through the
Donald Young Gallery,
Chicago, 1987
(gift of
Margaret andAngus
Wurtele 88.388)