Curtis Cuffie Background

Born in Hartsville, South Carolina, Curtis Cuffie has exhibited his work at the American Museum of Visionary Art in Baltimore, Maryland; the Arts Alliance in Haverstraw, New York; Pace University Gallery in Pleasantville, New York; the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in Jamaica, New York; and at numerous venues in New York City including TRIBES Gallery, The 4th Street Photo Gallery, Exit Art, American Primitive Gallery, and the 1997 Downtown Arts Festival. He has received grants from The Pollack-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Change Incorporated, and has been profiled by The New York Times, Art and Antiques, The Village Voice, and New York Press. In 1995 Cuffie was featured in the NBC special broadcast Outsider Art.

Cuffie first gained local fame for art he made in the streets of the East Village from 1989-97. Working in the tradition of rural southern yardshows, bottle-trees, and decorated graves turned urban, Cuffie has sited his vibrant and, ultimately, ephemeral works on the traffic island south of Cooper Union, the exterior of Bowery Bar, and the "Margin" just south of Astor Place.