Purvis Young (1943–2010), Untitled (Window Assemblage)

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Purvis Young (1943–2010), Untitled (Window Assemblage)
Miami, Florida
Late 20th century

This compelling mixed-media assemblage by Purvis Young exemplifies the … Read more Purvis Young (1943–2010), Untitled (Window Assemblage)
Miami, Florida
Late 20th century

This compelling mixed-media assemblage by Purvis Young exemplifies the artist’s deeply symbolic and socially engaged visual language. Constructed from scrap wood and a painted lucite panel, the work takes the form of an architectural window, complete with a hinged, operable element that opens from approximately ½ inch to 7 inches at one end. The surface is signed “Young” at the upper left, affirming authorship.

Painted directly onto the translucent lucite and interior wood surfaces, the composition features a gridded framework—suggestive of a window frame, barred opening, or institutional threshold—overlaid with expressive, gestural figures rendered in black, gray, red, and muted flesh tones. These attenuated forms hover between figuration and abstraction, evoking bodies, spirits, or witnesses caught in a liminal space. The vertical red lines intensify the reading of confinement, surveillance, and division, while the smoky brushwork conveys movement, memory, and emotional charge.

The window motif is central to Purvis Young’s iconography. Here, it operates simultaneously as a barrier and possibility: a symbol of restriction, incarceration, and social constraint, but also of observation, testimony, and fragile hope. The fact that the window physically opens transforms the work from a static image into an interactive metaphor, underscoring Young’s persistent themes of endurance, resilience, and the desire for liberation within systems of limitation.

Executed in the artist’s characteristic use of found and humble materials, this assemblage aligns closely with Young’s most sought-after works, where painting, object, and architecture converge. More complex and conceptually layered than his flat board paintings, it represents a mature expression of his practice and is well suited for collectors of outsider art, American social realism, and postwar assemblage.

A powerful, museum-worthy work that encapsulates Purvis Young’s role as one of the most important self-taught American artists of the late 20th century.

Dimensions:
18.5" H × 14.5" W × 2" D (closed)
Opens to approximately 7" H at one end

Condition:
Very good vintage condition, with wear, surface variation, and paint irregularities consistent with the artist’s materials and working method. See less