Miami Art Legend Purvis Young Dies at 67

Young lived and worked in Overtown, and began painting after serving a prison term for breaking and entering and realizing his true purpose in life. Unable to regularly obtain canvases, Young used found items like old doors and discarded lumber. His simple but expressive works, often classified as outsider art, captured the strife of Overtown, poverty, crime and racial strain as well as hope and religion. In recent years Young's work had been championed by the Rubell Family Collection and his life story was chronicled in a feature-length documentary Purvis of Overtown. 

"Purvis Young was a true and consummate artist who lived entirely for his art. He leaves behind a colossal body of work which has already given pleasure to countless people who have seen it in the over sixty museums in in which his vibrant expressionistic paintings have been shown. Purvis Young will live on through his paintings and in the memory of his friends and myriad collectors," reads a tribute on his website.