Scott Burton (June 23, 1939 – December 29, 1989) was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.

[3] During his decade-long relationship with the painter John Button in the 1960s, Burton was introduced to the social networks of the art, dance, and theater communities of New York.

He wrote a substantial amount of art criticism in the late 1960s in this role, including the introduction to the pivotal exhibition Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form at the Kunsthalle Berne.

[4] Starting in 1969, he began to make performance art, first contributing to the "Street Works" events held in 1969 (and featuring such artists as Vito Acconci and Eduardo Costa).

"[6] Burton began incorporating furniture into his work as early as 1970, and it would grow from being an active participant in his performances to his main area of output in the 1980s.

It was public art that caught his imagination, and starting in 1979 he began to reconsider his role as an artist by making works of functional furniture-as-sculpture (pragmatic sculpture, he called it) that were meant to be largely anonymous, invisible, and woven into the fabric of the everyday.

His fiercely laconic work destroyed the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between private delectation and public use and radically altered the way we see many 20th-century masters, including Gerrit Rietveld and Brâncuși.

"[9] Many of Burton's most important public site-specific works are endangered, and some have been destroyed through removal, including the Atrium Furnishment that was designed for the interior of the AXA Equitable Center, 1281 Sixth Avenue, New York.

[9] Burton's influence declined after his death, which The New York Times reported was due in large part to his decision to leave his estate to the Museum of Modern Art, which was poorly equipped to market and promote his work.