By Eric Newill
Portraits by David A. Raccuglia
Above all, Purvis Young told stories. For more than 40 years, in thousands upon thousands of works, he depicted the tales of Miami’s Overtown, translating a lifetime’s worth of inner-city experiences, observations and acquaintances into a lyrical history of that embattled neighborhood. Faces peer from behind jail bars, and abstract groups form protests. Angels—some human, some celestial—offer comfort and hope, while boats, railway cars and horses evoke visions of escape and freedom.
Born in 1943 into a vibrant, thriving area of steady families and successful establishments, Young witnessed his neighborhood’s decline after whole city blocks were knocked down to create the new interstate, a civic decision that ruined lives, uprooted generations and tore asunder the fabric of the community. Overtown’s decline mirrored Young’s own when he was arrested and sent to prison for a youthful infraction. While incarcerated, he began to paint. Never formally educated, Young’s iconoclastic work became a hallmark of “outsider art,” a phrase denoting pieces created without classical technique and often using primitive, found materials.
“If struggle was a preeminent theme within his work, overcoming struggle was even more important,” says Clare Vickery, owner of Dania Beach’s Grace Cafe and Galleries, and a close friend of Young’s toward the end of his life. “He would talk a lot about God and suffering, but his painted warriors on horseback and his images of pregnant women giving birth represented the regeneration of individuals. His angels were the means by which God was opening the door to freedom.”
MAN AT WORK: Never formally taught, Young’s body of work defied convention, even becoming recognized on a national level.
After his release from prison, Young returned to Overtown, fired by a passion to document what he saw—the poverty and hardship as well as the goodness and redemption. Inspired by Chicago’s Wall of Respect—an outdoor mural depicting African-American leaders—he hung scores of pieces side by side in an ancient, narrow passage called Good Bread Alley, located at 14th Street and NW Third Avenue. Richard Levine, an early collector, remembers seeing this colorful display from the highway in the mid-1970s. “I used to pass over these slum shacks with paintings nailed to them, and then read in the Herald that they were going to be ripped down and the work thrown away,” Levine says. “So I immediately went there and purchased 80 pieces. They were created out of anything he could find—pieces of wood, discarded dressers, tabletops, metal pans—all depicting life in Overtown.”
This circumstance would recur in Young’s life when he would produce enough work to fill an industrial building, but a shortsighted landlord would threaten him with eviction and the pieces with destruction. In the mid-1990s, New York collectors Don and Mera Rubell, newly arrived in Miami, saw a canvas at a friend’s house: “There was something so amazing in that painting. It was truly mystical,” Mera says. “We were blown away because it violated all the rules, coming from such a mysterious place.”
By that point, Young was making regular pilgrimages to the public library, where Miami-Dade Public Library System art services director Barbara Young (no relation) took him under her wing, exposing him to books on iconic artists such as Michelangelo and Vincent Van Gogh. It became a revelation, and his mix of raw, outsider technique and classical inspiration became a signature of his work. “Purvis used his creative genius to transcend time and place, taking the best of what he learned from the masters—color, light, form—to communicate in such a powerful way,” says Marilyn Holifield, a collector, attorney and Pérez Art Museum Miami trustee. “He was an excellent example of creating new art from old master sensibilities.”
HIS STORY: Four years after his death, Young’s work still triggers memories of harsh stories from the inner city.
Fascinated by what they saw, the Rubells visited Young at his Overtown residence/studio, housed in a 5,000-square-foot garage with 20-foot-high ceilings. “When he opened the door, it was as if the light blinded him,” Mera says. “Inside was almost total darkness, and the entire space was filled with paintings, stacked at least 15 feet high. We had to walk on them in order to see them. He had literally painted himself out of the space, creating almost a cave experience, a universe of his imagination.”
To save the pieces from confiscation and destruction, the Rubells agreed to buy the entire lot, almost 3,000 pieces created over a span of decades. “We had never really bought outsider art, but when we came to know Purvis, it was hard to distinguish his work from that of our other artists. The way he talked about art, his commitment to it, made it his life’s work. He’s not just on the periphery of our collection; he’s one of the great artists you discover.”
By the 2000s, Young had finally become recognized on a national scale, represented in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the American Folk Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in New York City, among other institutions, as well as in innumerable private collections. His work adorned the cover of the first volume of Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South, a comprehensive look at self-taught artists of the Southeast. In 2003, he was featured in the prestigious exhibition African American Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Having acquired so many of his pieces, the Rubells went on to donate them to myriad venues, notably Morehouse College in Atlanta, which owns the largest grouping of his works outside Miami.
Still, as Young’s fame grew, his life remained modest. His bicycle was his contact with the world, as he would ride around his neighborhood, seeking visual inspiration as well as physical materials for his work. Plagued by health issues including diabetes, he often struggled with daily life, a situation chronicled in the 2006 documentary film, “Purvis of Overtown,” which includes poignant scenes depicting his dialysis treatments. “He was reaching the apex of his career, being recognized and experimenting with form,” Vickery says, “but physically he was shutting down, having trouble with his coordination.”
A GREAT WALL: In 1973, Young began affixing hundreds of painted panels to a run-down building in Overtown, a few blocks north of Downtown Miami. The area became known as Good Bread Alley and developed over a period of two years. It served as an artful veil of the rougher reality of the ghetto surrounding it.
On April 20, 2010, Young died from cardiac arrest and pulmonary edema at age 67. But his work continues to inspire people such as graphic and multimedia artist La Mano Fria, who first saw Young’s images on his massive mural painted on Miami’s Northside Metrorail station. “He pioneered what it really means to be a street artist in Miami,” Fria says, “being connected, inspired by, and then giving back to that same community on the streets.”
Vickery adds, “His art really speaks to the new generation of graffiti artists. He was starting his career when the first wave of New York graffiti artists were, but in a slightly different way, tacking his individual paintings up on abandoned buildings. But the reason was the same: to express disappointment with the social situations of the time.”
“I can still see him, sitting like a Buddha surrounded by rapt students as he talked about his life,” Mera says. “Painting is about an artist’s ability to reveal personal truths, and Purvis Young was the storyteller of his neighborhood and his era.”
Originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue.
