George Jacobs - Self-taught Artself-taughtart.com

Purvis Young

Florida (born 1943)

"Purvis Young first gained attention as an artist more than 25 years ago, when he began making large mural-style paintings on plywood nailed to the exteriors of abandoned buildings in the Overtown ghetto where he has spent most of his life. In a fashion characteristic of his work, the paintings are on scrap wood panels and other flat, rectangular materials that Young salvages from the streets. These surfaces are particularly appropriate for his cityscapes, which depict the same urban settings where he finds these damaged and discarded materials. He uses them in such a way that they can be seen as metaphors for the human lives that are wasted in such economically impoverished inner-city environments - tossed aside by society and yet capable of being reclaimed and restored, just as Young transforms and renews the castoffs from which he makes his art.

Young has been recognized as one of the masters of this broadly defined nonacademic genre. His work possesses a singularly raw form of aesthetic power and is highly relevant to some of today's most pressing social problems. The most recent measure of Young's status within the art world is a major exhibition titled, Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology. Young is one of only four living artists represented in this show."

Tom Patterson
Winston-Salem Journal



George Jacobs Self-Taught Art
formerly Creative Heart Gallery
PO Box 476
Newport, Rhode Island 02840
Phone: 401-847-0991
Fax: 401-847-8498
george@self-taughtart.com


To purchase art, please note the artist and the artwork name and email us at george@self-taughtart.com or call us at (401)847-0991.
Visa, Mastercard, and Amex accepted.

Click on images for a larger view.

"Uprising"
1991
oil on marker board
36 x 48
$4,500
"Untitled (Aftermath)"
1995
oil on panel
25 x 48
$3,000
"Untitled (Nine Figures)"
1996
oil on canvas mounted on plywood, carpet frame
48 x 26
$2,500
"Untitled"
1995
oil, varnish on panel
12 x 47
$2,000
"Untitled"
1998
oil on wood, panel frame
30 x 30
$1,800
"Untitled (Supply Truck)"
1990s
oil on board, plywood
38 x 28
$1,200
"Untitled (Urban Scene)"
1990s
oil on cardboard, carpet
22 x 31
$1,000
"Boats"
1999
oil on paper
30 x 22
$900
"Untitled"
1990s
oil on paper legal folders
18 x 39
$900
"Untitled (Saint)"
1990s
oil, marker on printed paper
12 x 11
18 x 17 frame
$500
"Untitled (Burial)"
1990s
oil on blue paper
23 x 16
$450
"Untitled (Knight)"
1990s
acrylic, oil pastel on paper
11 x 9
18 x 15 frame
$400
"Untitled"
1990s
oil on payroll ledger paper
11 x 14
$275