Purvis Young Large 43" Signed Original Painting 3 Men with Foundation COA

Artist: Purvis Young
Title: 3 Men
Medium: Paint on Canvas
Paper Size 43" x 22"
Frame Size 50" x 39" x 1 1/4"
Edition: Original
Condition: In the style of found art with an intentionally weathered appearance. Expected imperfections include heavy creasing, unfinished edges, and marks and staining on the back.
Inscription: Signed "Young" on front upper right
Documentation: Includes Certificate of Authenticity from the Purvis Young Foundation

Much of Purvis Young's art is autobiographical, telling stories of his life in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami. "3 Men" depicts 3 full figures in chains, exploring the theme of incarceration which Young resisted throughout his career. The artist spent 3 years in prison himself, and saw firsthand how the penitentiary system impacted the families around him. Young's artwork explores ideas of wrongful conviction and mass incarceration through symbols including padlocks, prison bars, cages, shackles, ropes, and chains. Despite the heavy subject matter, Young has chosen a pallet of bright colors for "3 Men," perhaps alluding to an idea of hope despite the unfortunate circumstances we see present throughout his body of work.

Measuring 43" high, the large scale of this drawing is impactful in both a visual and narrative sense. This work is rendered in the style of found art with an intentionally weathered appearance. Expected imperfections include heavy creasing, unfinished edges, and marks and staining on the back. This work is signed "Young" on the front upper left 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.