Robert Pruitt (b. 1975, Houston, TX) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores history, identity, and the complexities of Black life through drawing, painting, and sculpture. He earned his BA from Texas Southern University in 2000 and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003.
Pruitt’s work has been widely recognized and exhibited across the United States. Most recently, his art was featured in A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, a traveling exhibition that debuted at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson before moving to the Baltimore Museum of Art and The Brooklyn Museum. He has presented numerous solo shows, including Guest Minister at Oxbow in Seattle, The Banner Project at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Devotion at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, among others.
His work has also been part of major group exhibitions, such as Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; FEMMES, curated by Pharrell Williams at Perrotin, Paris; Between Distance and Desire: African Perspectives at The Soloviev Foundation Gallery, New York; Us, We, Them at the Worcester Art Museum; and Assembly at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin. Additional highlights include Men of Steel, Women of Wonder at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, which traveled to museums across the country, from San Francisco to Salt Lake City to Seattle.
Earlier in his career, Pruitt was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. His work is now held in the collections of major institutions including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Portland Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, among others.
