Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA)

Known for his sprawling art environment, the Outdoor Desert Art Museum of Assemblage Sculpture in Joshua Tree, CA, Noah Purifoy graduated from the Chouinard Art Instittute (now CalArts) with a BFA in 1956 and made his first sculpture from charred debris found in the wreckage of the Watts Rebellion. The work would be a critical part of the 1966 group exhibition about the uprising, 66 Signs of Neon. Purifoy was a founding director of the Watts Towers Art Center and worked in public policy for the California Arts Council, where he implemented the program Artists in Social Institutions and helped bring artmaking to incarcerated people. In 1989, Purifoy moved to Joshua Tree, where he set to work creating his magnum opus, a ten-acre parcel of public sculpture made entirely from salvaged materials. Today, his works are held in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the California African American Museum in Los Angeles.