The Easel

Martin Puryear

Puryear, a “giant” of American art, is well overdue a London retrospective. This “tremendous” survey makes amends. Puryear clearly loves working in wood, an echo of the wood cultures he encountered in Africa and Japan. His sculptures convey allusions and ambiguities. As one critic noted about one of his pieces “the logic of the thing’s making is obvious but… something else is hidden … lurking”.