Purvis Young Large 38” Rare Horse Sculpture Signed Original Hand Painted Mixed Media

Artist: Purvis Young
Title: Untitled
Medium: Mixed Media Hand-Painting on Paper Mache Sculpture
Size: 35" x 8-1/2" x 38"
Edition: Original
Inscription: Signed "Young" near tail
Documentation: Includes a Certificate of Authenticity from the Purvis Young Foundation

Purvis Young sculptures are extremely rare, especially ones of considerable size. This Untitled 35" x 8-1/2" x 38" example celebrates the form of the horse, one of Young's most repeated symbols commonly used to signify freedom. The horse itself is constructed of paper mache and left white in order to provide a clean backdrop for Young's incredible hand-painting. The hand painting weaves a rich narrative, showcasing several of Young's other most common symbols including faces, buildings, stars, and angels.

Throughout his career, Purvis Young used many unconventional canvases, often using found items and discarded scraps from his neighborhood. Here, he applies this adaptation to an unusual purpose-built canvas. Combining several mediums, this Untitled sculpture highlights Young's versatility, skill, and complex storytelling.

Purvis Young's Untitled horse sculpture is signed "Young" near the tail and includes a Certificate of Authenticity from the Purvis Young Foundation.

About Purvis Young

Self-taught artist from a poverty stricken neighborhood of Miami, Purvis Young transformed his fraught yet inspired life experience into a unique and compelling visual vocabulary. Through a range of powerful symbols, he articulated the struggles and myths of his heritage.

Drawing from a range of sources such as documentaries, art books, American history and spiritual folklore, Young crafted an immense visual language comprised of motifs such as white horses offering freedom, halos signifying angles, pregnant women with the hope of tomorrow, processions and incarceration, among others. Telling simple, yet powerful stories of everyday life, the artist expressed his community and ethnic background. Using found objects from his neighborhood, such as cardboard, discarded political signs, used paper, doors, plywood scraps, metal sheets, carpet remnants, he transformed these surfaces into richly colored and highly expressionist paintings. Although Young is often associated with Outsider Art, his style could best be described as "Magic realism".

In 2016, his life and work were the subject of a feature documentary entitled Purvis of Overtown. He was a recipient of the Artists/Fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and was included into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame in 2018. His work is found in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.

The subjects of Purvis Young celebrated and historicized the neighborhood where he had spent his entire life. Even though his works chronicled struggle, they always contained an underlining hope for a better future.

Purvis Young was born in 1943 in Overtown neighborhood of Miami, Florida and died in 2010 in Miami. In 2015, almost 400 pieces of Young's art were donated by The Bass Museum of Art to the permanent collection in the Black Archives History and research Foundation of South Florida located in the heart of Purvis' hometown.