Puryear collaborated on a reedition of Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923), a classic of African American literature from the Harlem Renaissance. Toomer's experimental novel consists of a series of vignettes, set across the northern and southern United States, in which Black protagonists encounter violence, racism, spirituality, and desire. Echoing *Cane*’s keen attention to racial identity, Puryear’s slipcase is crafted of woods native to Africa, Europe, and North America that evoke a range of skin colors. His accompanying abstract woodcuts are named after the female characters in the novel. “The challenge,” Puryear said, “was to create a set of images that would relate together in a familial way, suggestive of the narrative but not overtly so.”
Gallery label from 2020
