Overtown Murals by Miami Artist Purvis Young

Wynwood might be Miami's most famous neighborhood for street art, but Purvis Young – whose work covered the walls of the Historic Overtown neighborhood in the 1970s – is arguably the original Miami street artist.

Born in Miami’s Liberty City in 1943, Young dropped out of school in the 1960s and ended up in North Florida’s Raiford State Penitentiary on breaking and entering charges. It was in prison, though, where he began drawing and reading art books, influenced by Chicago and Detroit’s mural artists.

In 1971, Young returned to Miami's Historic Overtown neighborhood and began painting scenes inspired by life on the streets and his daily observations. “I ain’t got time to criticize the system too much,” he said in the 2006 documentary film, Purvis of Overtown. “But I paint what I see.”

Purvis Young's Artistic Style

While Young’s work is often classified as folk art, his style of mixing bold, saturated colors and a lack of landscape resonate more deeply with the contemporary art movements of Fauvism and Abstract Expressionism. 

His subjects are African Americans depicted as angels in chains or without homes, pregnant women, wild horses, scenes of social unrest, funerals, lynchings and other representations of life on the streets.

Lauded for his fierce observational skills and the innate ability to dream, his works are at once raw and hopeful. His style is distinctive. Once you become familiar with his works, you'll be able to recognize them when you see them.

"I try to solve how every man could get along," Young once said of his art. "Put honey in the sky where it could drip and make the world sweet."

Young also worked with found materials like scrap wood and cardboard, and repurposed discarded books and magazines by pasting his drawings inside. He cited the works of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gauguin, El Greco and Picasso amongst his influences.

Young's work has been compared to contemporaries like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, yet he never gained the notoriety of these artists while he was alive, due to his near anonymity working as a street artist in Overtown.

His monumental installation covered the boarded-up storefronts of Goodbread Alley in Overtown, where he lived with a collage of his work. The installation would eventually catch the eye of the influential art collectors, including Bernard Davis, then the owner of the Miami Museum of Modern Art. Davis became a collector and benefactor, providing Young with support and materials.

Other famous collectors of Young's work include Jane Fonda, Daman Wayans, Jim Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Thanks to the support of influential figures in the art world, today, Purvis Young is rightfully celebrated as a pioneering and important figure in the art history of Miami.

Purvis Young's Work on View Today

A handful of Purvis Young's murals can still be found in Miami's Historic Overtown today.

Overpass Wall at NW 11th Street and NW 3rd Avenue

One of Young’s last murals was painted a few months before his death, in April 2010. It’s found on the overpass wall at NW 11th Street and NW 3rd Avenue, next to a “Welcome to Historic Overtown” sign. It depicts many of the motifs often seen in his work, including wild horses, angels and city buildings painted in shades of yellow, green, pink and blue.

Culmer / Overtown Public Library

Young's "Everyday Life" (1984) mural is found on a wall of the Culmer/Overtown Public Library branch at NW 13th Street, near Gibson Park in the Overtown Folklife Village. Against a yellow backdrop, a street  scene unfolds with city buildings and citizens gathered in tight clusters.

Northside Metrorail Station

At the Northside Metrorail station, just north of Overtown, an impressive Young mural from 1986 covers an interior wall. It’s dedicated to the workers who built the Metrorail and depicts train tracks, human figures, horses and trucks for a sense of movement and travel.

Purvis Young Tribute Mural at 3rd Avenue Metrorail Overpass

In 2016, contemporary street artist Addonis Parker painted a tribute mural to his old friend Young that can be found at the 3rd Avenue Metrorail overpass in Overtown. Covering an enormous wall in a colorful Cubist fashion, it features a portraits of Young at work and the recurring motifs of his art.

Museum Collections & Galleries

Beyond Young’s public murals in Miami, many museums, galleries and institutions have hosted temporary exhibitions of the artist’s work, from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami to the MiamiCentral train station in Downtown Miami. Significantly, the Rubell Museum made a major acquisition of Young’s collection in 1999, which spans nearly 3,000 pieces.

Young’s work can also be found in the permanent collections of such esteemed institutions as the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.