Over 20 years of Pruitt’s expansive vision of Blackness, articulated through large-scale drawings as well as sculptures, graphic novels, photographs, animations and installations

Published with Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

This publication commemorates the American artist Robert Pruitt (born 1975), who works across drawing, sculpture, photography and animation. Pruitt is famed for rendering large-scale drawings of Black subjects in conté on hand-dyed paper. He places his subjects―who are often modeled after friends and family―within imagined scenarios, narrativized through clothing and accoutrements that reference historical Black struggles as well as hip-hop culture and comic books. In doing so, he advances a diverse and radical vision of Blackness past and present.
This substantial monograph aims to broaden public understanding of Pruitt’s practice by including his lesser-known sculpture, graphic novel and installation works. The most comprehensive volume on Pruitt’s oeuvre to-date, this book delves into the artist’s influences, research, training and legacy through fresh scholarship and an interview.