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Alien Huddle

1993–95

Martin Puryear

(American, b. 1941)

America, 20th century

Red cedar and pine

Overall: 134.6 x 162.5 x 134.6 cm (53 x 64 x 53 in.)

Gift of Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro 2002.65

Location

229B Contemporary

Did you know?

Puryear seamlessly attached red cedar planks to the pine core without metal fixtures, a skill attributed to his training in furniture making, joinery, and woodworking.

Description

With its bulbous joined spheres made of pine and cedar, Alien Huddle reveals the close relationship between organic form and material that is emblematic of Martin Puryear's sculpture. A great breadth of aesthetic traditions informs his work, including modernist abstraction, Indigenous African crafts, boat building, and recent technology. Puryear brings these together to create a distinctive body of abstract work animated by cultural, social, and historical references.

Provenance

Collection of the artist; (McKee Gallery, New York); Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro.

Citations

Cleveland Museum of Art, “Martin Puryear Sculpture Donated to Museum,” June 25, 2002, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org

Puryear, Martin, and John Elderfield. Martin Puryear. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007. Reproduced pgs. 148 and 166, Plate 34.

Puryear, Martin. Martin Puryear. Exh. Cat. Madrid, Spain: Fundación La Caixa, 1997. Reproduced on cover and p. 100-01, no. 27.

Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. Reproduced p. 95, no. 136; mentioned p. 94 and 124.

Sparks, Amy and Rebecca Michaels, eds. African American Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Reproduced p. 28; mentioned p. 20.

“A Conversation with Martin Puryear.” American Craft Council 1.1 (Spring 2006). Reproduced p. 8-9

Exhibition history

Martin Puryear. Fundación La Caixa, Madrid, Spain (November 15, 1997 - January 11, 1998).

Martin Puryear. Centre Cultural de la Fundacio Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, Spain (November 15, 1997-January 15, 1998).

Martin Puryear. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (organizer) (March 6-May 27, 2001); Miami Art Museum (June 22-August 19, 2001); Berkeley Art Center, CA (September 12-December 30, 2001); Des Moines Art Center (January 18-April 14, 2002).

The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).

Martin Puryear, 1993-95. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (November 4, 2007-January 14, 2008); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX (February 24-May 18, 2008); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (June 22-September 28, 2008).

Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Alien Huddle|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/2002.65|author=Martin Puryear|year=1993–95|access-date=23 September 2021|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Alien Huddle

Alien Huddle

Martin Puryear

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