Artist Conversation: Martin Puryear and Emily Liebert

The Fran and Warren Rupp Contemporary Artists Lecture

Tags For: Artist Conversation: Martin Puryear and Emily Liebert
  • Lecture
  • Ticket Required

On Sale for Members: Tuesday, February 17, 2026

On Sale for General Public: Thursday, February 19, 2026

Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 6:00–7:00 p.m.
Martin Puryear, Artist
Emily Liebert, Lauren Rich Fine Curator of Contemporary Art and Chair of Art of the Americas and Modern and Contemporary Art
Location:  Gartner Auditorium
Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center
Free; Ticket Required

About The Event

One of the most celebrated and influential artists of our time, Martin Puryear (American, born 1941) has for more than half a century created work with captivating presence that is at once technically precise and conceptually expansive. Working primarily in sculpture, his art is abstract. Puryear relies on material, shape, composition, and scale to invite reflection on the world that we inhabit and the times in which we live.  

With the opening of Martin Puryear: Nexus, the artist’s retrospective at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Puryear joins exhibition curator Emily Liebert in conversation about the themes, forms, and processes of making that have shaped his work. They also consider the artistic and cultural traditions that have inspired Puryear through his lifelong travels, reading, and research.    

Since 1968, Puryear’s art has been exhibited at museums around the world and he has created permanent outdoor commissions in Europe, Asia, and throughout the United States. His awards include a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” award in 1989 and a National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2011. In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a traveling survey of his work. In 2019, he represented the United States at the 58th Venice Biennale.   

Sponsors

All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Principal support is provided by Dieter and Susan M. Kaesgen and Gail C. and Elliott L. Schlang. Major annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mrs. Martine Kowal, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, Medical Mutual of Ohio, the Edwin D. Northrup II Fund, Shurtape Technologies, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Generous annual support is provided by Gini and Randy Barbato, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Dr. William A. Chilcote Jr. and Dr. Barbara S. Kaplan, Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, Linda Harper, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Susan LaPine, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, Sarah Nash, Courtney and Michael Novak, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, the Pickering Foundation, William Roj and Mary Lynn Durham, Suzanne Cushwa Rusnak and Jeff Rusnak, Ellen and Lowell Satre, in memory of Dee Schafer, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, the Sally and Larry Sears Fund for Education Endowment, Roy Smith, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Trilling Family Foundation, Jack and Jeanette Walton, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

    The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

    Education programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.