Michael Puryear is an internationally recognized designer/furniture maker. He is self-taught learning his craft through reading and experimentation and has been practicing his craft for more than 30 years. His work has been exhibited in Museums and galleries around the US such as the Museum of Art & Design in NYC; Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, MA. His work has been published widely most recently in Makers: A History of American Studio Craft published by the University of North Carolina Press and Furniture With Soul: Master Wood workers and their Craft published by Kodansha. His work is found in the collections of: the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Rockefeller University and the Newark Museum and the Smithsonian National
Museum of African American History and Culture.

He has taught extensively at many of the craft schools in the US a well as Parson School of Design and was an adjunct associate professor at the State University of New York at Purchase for 13 years. He is a member of Furniture New York, The Hudson Valley Furniture Makers and a former trustee and member of the Furniture Society. He maintains his studio in the Catskill Mountains of NY.