Michael Puryear is a world-renowned furniture maker who combines contrasting colors and textures with a fusion of linear and curved forms, accentuating the wood’s natural character. Rich with references to Scandinavian and Shaker design and African culture, his pieces are permeated with shibui, a Japanese term for “subtle elegance.” Puryear approaches furniture making as a problem-solving practice. “The beginning stage is very internal, and I often get lost in thinking about the design in various ways,” he says. After sketching the form, he creates an orthographic drawing and maquette.
Puryear's work work has been exhibited in Museums and galleries around the country such as the Museum of Art & Design in New York City; Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts and is in the collections of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Rockefeller University, the Newark Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He is a former trustee of the Furniture Society and in 2023 he received the Furniture Society’s Award of Distinction.
On January 23, the American Craft Council, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing American craft, announced that Shokan-based designer was named to its College of Fellows. We profiled Puryear in the Summer 2020 issue of Upstate House.
