Noah Purifoy

Noah Purifoy was born in Snow Hill, Alabama in 1917 and spent much of his life in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California, where he passed away in 2004. After earning degrees from Alabama State Teachers College and Atlanta University, he completed a BFA at Chouinard in 1956. Purifoy's early sculptural work used debris from the 1965 Watts rebellion, culminating in 66 Signs of Neon, a landmark 1966 exhibition that traveled nationally. A founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center, he was deeply connected to the local community and saw art as a powerful vehicle for social change. His approach to found objects influenced artists such as David Hammons and Senga Nengudi. In the 1980s, after over a decade with the California Arts Council, he moved to the Mojave Desert, where he spent the last 15 years of his life building a ten-acre sculpture park from salvaged materials.