Artist: Purvis Young
Title: Urban Landscape
Medium: Original Oil on Canvas Painting Laid on Panel
Size: 45.5" x 55.5"
Year: c. 2000
Condition: In the style of found art with an intentionally weathered appearance. Expected imperfections include heavy creasing, unfinished edges, and marks.
Documentation: Includes a Certificate of Authenticity from the Purvis Young Foundation
"Urban Landscape" captures Purvis Young's distinctive synthesis of expressionism and social commentary, rooted in the material and cultural environment of Miami's Overtown neighborhood. This large-scale painting depicts a dynamic city scene with cars, trucks, buildings, and figures animated across the composition. Against a mauve and pink ground, the imagery unfolds in black, yellow, and red, creating a visual rhythm that reflects the constant flux of urban life. Young's recurring inclusion of trucks and other vehicles underscores one of his central themes: movement, migration, and opportunity. These motifs serve not only as literal references to the city but also as symbolic expressions of human progress, displacement, and spiritual journey.
The work exemplifies Young's practice of using found and repurposed materials as a support for his art. By layering pigment over distressed surfaces, he created paintings that embody both the aesthetic of improvisation and the resilience of the communities he represented. The unfinished edges, creasing, and visible wear in "Urban Landscape" are integral to the work, not flaws, underscoring Young's alignment with the visual language of found art and the immediacy of his engagement with the world around him.
Purvis Young's paintings have entered the permanent collections of major museums, where works with urban themes closely related to "Urban Landscape" are preserved. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the American Folk Art Museum in New York all hold paintings in which Young depicted cityscapes populated with vehicles and crowds, reflecting his sustained interest in the energy and struggles of metropolitan life. These institutional holdings underscore the significance of works such as "Urban Landscape" within the broader arc of his career, cementing Young's legacy as one of the most important self-taught painters of late twentieth-century America.
Purvis Young's "Urban Landscape" measures a monumental 45.5" H x 55.5" W. The original painting on canvas is placed on a panel and signed "Young" prominently on the front. Purchase includes Certificate of Authenticity from the Purvis Young Foundation.
About Purvis Young
Purvis Young was a self-taught American painter whose work emerged from the cultural and social landscape of Miami's Overtown neighborhood. Born in Liberty City, Miami, in 1943, Young grew up in a community marked by systemic poverty, segregation, and displacement. His art reflects both the struggles and resilience of urban life, combining personal memory with broader themes of social justice, spirituality, and historical consciousness.
Young began drawing and making art as a teenager but spent time in prison during the early 1960s, where he discovered art books that profoundly influenced his decision to pursue painting more seriously. After his release, he returned to Overtown and began creating murals and assemblages, often using discarded materials such as plywood, scrap metal, and cardboard. His earliest public work, sometimes referred to as the "Good Bread Alley" murals, transformed abandoned walls into a vibrant visual archive of his neighborhood's history and struggles.
Stylistically, Young's work is characterized by an improvisational approach that merges painting, collage, and assemblage. He frequently layered house paint and found pigments over rough surfaces, producing compositions marked by raw texture and dynamic movement. Recurring motifs include angels, horses, boats, protest marches, and urban crowds—forms that function both as personal symbols and as metaphors for themes of freedom, struggle, migration, and transcendence. While largely self-taught, Young drew inspiration from artists such as Rembrandt and El Greco, as well as from the socially engaged murals of the Works Progress Administration era.
Recognition of Young's art grew steadily from the 1970s onward, with collectors, critics, and museums identifying his work as a singular voice in contemporary American art. His paintings and assemblages are now included in major public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The inclusion of his work in these institutions reflects both his regional significance and his broader role in redefining the boundaries of contemporary and outsider art.
Throughout his career, Young's art functioned as both personal testimony and social commentary. By repurposing found materials and elevating everyday imagery, he created a body of work that is inseparable from its cultural context. His paintings are not only aesthetic objects but also historical records, bearing witness to the experiences of marginalized communities in urban America.
Purvis Young died in 2010, leaving behind an expansive oeuvre that continues to be studied for its artistic innovation and cultural resonance. Today, his work is widely recognized as a central contribution to the canon of American contemporary art, and his legacy endures as an example of how local histories and personal vision can achieve international significance.
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