NOAH PURIFOY
Born 1917, Snow Hill, AL
Died 2004, Joshua Tree, CA
Education
1956 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA
1948 Master of Social Service Administration, Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA
1943 Bachelor of Science, Alabama State Teachers College, Montgomery, AL
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Noah Purifoy, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2018 Noah Purifoy, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2015-2016 Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; traveled
to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
1999 Random Transformations: Assemblages by Noah Purifoy, Allen Priebe Gallery,
University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
1998 Assemblages by Noah Purifoy, Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena, CA
1997 Noah Purifoy: Outside and in the Open, California African American Museum,
Los Angeles, CA; traveled to African American Museum, Dallas, TX;
Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA;
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
1996 Purifoy Now and Then, The Corridor Gallery of Art, Los Angeles, CA
1995 Desert Tombstones, Rachele Lozzi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Assemblages, Mountainview Memorial Gallery, Altadena, CA
Legends - Artists' Salute to Black History Month, Crenshaw Plaza, Los Angeles, CA
1993 As Is In Joshua Tree, Tara's Hall, Los Angeles, CA [now a permanent exhibition]
1989 A New Place To Be, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
1988 Noah Purifoy: Collages, Assemblages, Constructions and Combines,
Gallery at the Old Masonic Lodge, Los Angeles, CA
1971 Niggers Ain't Gonna Never Ever Be Nothin’- All They Want to do is Drink and Fuck,
Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
2022 Joan Didion: What She Means, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2021 Art of California: Greater than the Sum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Assembly: New Acquisitions by Contemporary Black Artists, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
Empty Legs, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2019 Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection, California African
American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
LA Blacksmith, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Open House: Elliot Hundley, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Dreamweavers, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA
Unseen Works: David Hammons and Friends, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2018 East Coast/West Coast, Part II: Clark, Hammons, Purifoy, Saar, Washington,
Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
Ground to Sky, Yucca Valley Performing Arts Center, Yucca Valley, CA
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.,
January 28 - May 13, 2018; traveled to the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA,
June 22 – September 30, 2018; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA,
November 18, 2018 – March 17, 2019
2017 Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London, UK,
July 12 - October 22, 2017, traveled to Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, AR,
February 2 - April 23, 2018; the Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY,
September 7, 2018 - February 3, 2019; The Broad, Los Angeles, CA March 23 -
September 1, 2019; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, November 9, 2019 -
March 15, 2020; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, April 26 – July 19, 2020
2016 Experience 19: Touch, El Segundo Museum of Art (ESMoA), El Segundo, CA
Tinseltown in the Rain: The Surrealist Diaspora in Los Angeles 1935 to 1969,
Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Watts, The Loft at Liz's, Los Angeles, CA
2015-2016 Hard Edged: Geometrical Abstraction and Beyond, California African American Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
50 Years and I Still Can't Breathe, Watts Towers Arts Center, Los Angeles, CA
2015 America is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2014-2015 When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South, The Studio Museum
in Harlem, New York, NY; traveled to the NSU Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL;
and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
2012 For The Martian Chronicles, L&M Arts, Venice, CA
2011 Civic Virtue: The Impact of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Watts Towers
Arts Center, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970,
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA; traveled to
Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles,
CA; traveled to MoMA PS1, New York, NY
Places of Validation, Art and Progression, California African American Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
L.A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints, Tilton Gallery, Art 42, Basel, Switzerland
2010 Artists Influenced by Noah Purifoy, Twentynine Palms Artist Guild West Gallery,
Twentynine Palms, CA
2009 Harsh Terrain, Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA
Inside My Head: Intuitive Artists of African Descent, California African
American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Artists Influenced by Noah Purifoy, Twentynine Palms Artist Guild West Gallery,
Twentynine Palms, CA
2006 L.A. Object and David Hammons Body Prints, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY;
traveled to Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA
2005 African American Artists in Los Angeles, A Survey Exhibition: Pathways 1966-89,
California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Unpredictable Dialogue, Sam Francis Gallery, Crossroads School, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Artists Influenced by Noah Purifoy, Twentynine Palms Artist Guild West Gallery,
Twentynine Palms, CA
2003 African American Art Legends Exhibitions, FDG Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1999 A Piece at a Time, Watts Towers Arts Center, Los Angeles, CA
1998 World Artists for Tibet and World Human Rights, Santa Monica Museum of Art,
Santa Monica, CA
1997 Elusive Paradise, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Works by Kathy Lee, Carol Overr, and Noah Purifoy, Twentynine Palms Art Gallery,
Twentynine Palms, CA
1996 Purifoy Now and Then, The Corridor Gallery of Art, East Hollywood, CA
One Apiece, The Corridor Gallery of Art, Hollywood, CA
1995 Environments: Extending the Artist's Realm, California African American Museum,
Los Angeles, CA
African American Representations of Masculinity, Museum of African American Art,
Los Angeles, CA
Homecoming - First 25 Years at the Watts Towers Art Center, Watts Tower Arts Center,
Los Angeles, CA
The Legends, The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL
1994 Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; traveled to the Hammer
Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Connections II, Getty Center for the History of
Art and Humanities, Santa Monica, CA [Commission]
1993 Off the Wall, Porter Randall Gallery, La Jolla, CA
I Remember: Thirty Years After the March on Washington; Images of the
Civil Rights Movement 1963-1993, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1990 Celebrations, The Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA
1989 19 Sixties: A Cultural Awakening Reevaluated 1965-1975, California African American
Museum, Los Angeles, CA
1986 Southern California Assemblage: Past and Present, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts
Forum, The College of Creative Studies Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara,
CA; traveled to The Museum of Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz, CA
1977 African Festival of the Arts and Culture, Lagos, Nigeria
1975 Black Artists in California, State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA [Presented by
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.]
West Coast 74: The Black Image, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdale
Park, Los Angeles, CA
1974 The Negro in American Art, Fine Arts Galleries, San Diego, CA
Faculty Art Exhibit, Cowell College Gallery, University of California, Santa
Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
1973 The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
1972 Garbage is Beautiful (Müll macht Möglich), Berlin Industries Fair, Berlin, Germany
(September 15-24, 1972) [sponsored by the United States Office of Information];
traveled to Poland
Los Angeles 1972: A Panorama of Black Artists, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, Los Angeles, CA
1971 University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Kalamazoo Institute of Art, Kalamazoo, MI
Black Art: The Black Experience, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
Contemporary Black Artists In America, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Five Black Artists: Benny, Bernie, Betye, Noah and John, Lang Art Gallery,
Scripps College, Claremont, CA
Local Black Artists, Compton College, Compton, CA
Black American Artists ’71, Illinois Art Council and Illinois Bell Lobby Gallery,
Chicago, IL
Contemporary Black Imagery: 7 Artists, Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Negro in American Art and The Metal Experience, Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA
1970 Watts Summer Festival Art Exhibition, Will Rogers Park Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA
Fine Art in the Home by Contemporary Black Artists, San Fernando Furniture,
Los Angeles, CA [Sponsored by Brockman Gallery]
Dimensions of Black, La Jolla Museum, La Jolla, CA; traveled to the University of
San Diego, San Diego, CA
1969 12 Afro-American Artists, Nordness Galleries, New York, NY
Noah Purifoy and David Hammons, Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Microcosm 69, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
1967 University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
1966 - 1971 66 Signs of Neon, Simon Rodia Renaissance of the Arts Festival, Jordan Markham High,
Watts, CA; traveled to Watts Summer Art Festival, Watts, CA; The University of Southern
California Christian Science Center, Los Angeles, CA; The University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley Art Galleries, Berkeley, CA; Washington Gallery of Modern Art,
Washington DC; Hunter Art Gallery, Chattanooga, TN; Huntington Galleries, Knoxville, TN;
Orlando Galleries, Encino, CA
1966 The Negro in American Art. One Hundred and Fifty Years of Afro-American Art, UCLA
Dickson Center, Los Angeles, CA
Orlando Galleries, Encino, CA
1965 Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA
1960 California Design 6, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA
Awards and Achievements
1997-1998 Visual Artist Award, The Flintridge Foundation, Pasadena, CA
1997 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
1996 Lannan Foundation, Getty Trust Fund for Visual Arts, California Community Foundation
for touring Retrospective, Florsheim Art Fund
1995 Gottlieb Foundation
1993 Pollock Krasner Foundation
1976-1987 Member, California Arts Council, appointed by Governor Jerry Brown
1966 Co-Founder, Watts Summer Festivals. Los Angeles, CA
Co-Founder, Company Theatre (later Provisional Theatre), Los Angeles, CA
1964 Founder, Watts Towers Art Center, Los Angeles, CA
Public Collections
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
The Horseman Foundation, St. Louis, MO
Illinois Bell Telephone Company, Chicago, IL
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Oran Belgrave Museum, Omaha, NE
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Smithsonian Archives of American Art
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, WI
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY