Richard Hunt (sculptor)

For the Canadian First Nations artist, see Richard Hunt (artist).

Richard Hunt
Hunt in 1962
Born	Richard Howard Hunt (1935-09-12)September 12, 1935 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	December 16, 2023(2023-12-16) (aged 88) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Education	Englewood High School
Alma mater	School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Occupation	Sculptor
Years active	1953–2023
Known for	Sculpture, drawing, printmaking
Notable work	Hero's Head (1956) Arachne (1956) Steel Bloom, Number 10 (1956) Hero Construction (1958) The Chase (1965) Harlem Hybrid (1976) I Have Been to the Mountain (1977) Jacob's Ladder (1978) From the Sea (1983) Slowly toward the North (1984) From the ground Up (1989) Freeform (1993) Flintlock Fantasy or the Promise of Force (1991–1996) Flight Forms (2001) We Will (2005) Swing Low (2016) Scholar's Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze (2014–2020)
Spouses	Bettye Scott ​ ​ (m. 1957, divorced)​ Lenora Cartright ​ (died 1989)​ Anuschka Menist ​ (divorced)​
Website	richardhuntsculptor.com

Richard Howard Hunt (September 12, 1935 – December 16, 2023) was an American sculptor. In the second half of the 20th century, he became "the foremost African-American abstract sculptor and artist of public sculpture." Hunt, the descendant of enslaved people brought from West Africa through the Port of Savannah, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1950s. While there he received multiple prizes for his work. In 1971, he was the first African-American sculptor to have a retrospective at Museum of Modern Art. Hunt has created over 160 public sculpture commissions, more than any other sculptor in prominent locations in 24 states across the United States.

With a career spanning seven decades, Hunt held over 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the world. His notable abstract, modern and contemporary sculpture work appeared in exhibitions and public displays as early as the 1950s. He was one of the first artists to serve on the governing body for National Endowment for the Arts and later served on the board of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2022, Barack Obama stated that "Richard Hunt is one of the greatest artists Chicago has ever produced."

Arachne, 1956, Museum of Modern Art

Steel Bloom, Number 10, 1956 (shown here on poster at the Chicago Cultural Center, 2015)

Early life

Richard Hunt was born in 1935 on Chicago's South Side and raised in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Hunt and his younger sister, Marian, grew up there. Although he moved to Galesburg, Illinois at eleven years old, he spent the majority of his time in the city of Chicago. From an early age he was interested in the arts. Accompanying his mother, a beautician and librarian, he attended performances by local opera companies that sang classical repertoires of Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, and Handel.

As a young boy, Hunt began to show enthusiasm and talent for drawing, painting, and sculpting, interests that he increasingly developed. Inspired to pursue his career in the arts, he stated "My mom was supportive and dad was tolerant." Hunt also acquired business sense and awareness of social issues from working in his father's barbershop.

Hero Construction, 1958, Art Institute of Chicago, IL

As a teenager, Hunt began his work in sculpture, working with clay, carving wood, and modeling Sculpt-Metal. While his work started in a makeshift studio in his 1940s bedroom, he eventually built a basement studio in his father's barbershop and later a basement studio in the family's Englewood home.

Education

Beginning in the eighth grade at age 13, Hunt took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago's Junior School of the Arts. He graduated early from Englewood High School in January 1953 and entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago later that year, and graduated in 1957. He also took classes at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago.

While studying at the Art Institute, Hunt focused first on creating soldered wire figures, then on welding sculptures, and additionally producing lithographs. Interested in Modernism, Abstract Expressionism, and Surrealism, he experimented with the assemblage of broken machine parts, car bumpers, and metals from the junkyard reshaping them into organic forms. Hunt went on to work with iron, steel, copper, and aluminum producing a series of "hybrid figures", references to human, animal, and plant forms. Hunt explored the interplay of organic and industrial subject matter in his artwork. His earliest works, often represented classical themes, were more figural than his later ones.

Hunt began exhibiting his sculptures nationwide while still a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a Junior, his piece Arachne was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He received a bachelor's of arts in education (BAE) from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1957.

From the Sea, 1983, welded bronze, 71 × 45 × 64 in. (180 × 114 × 163 cm)

Emmett Till

In 1955, Hunt attended the funeral of Emmett Till at the Roberts Temple Church in Chicago. The open-casket funeral showed Till's face, mutilated and disfigured from having been lynched. This experience had a profound impact on Hunt. Till had grown up in Woodlawn only a few blocks from the home where Hunt was born. Hunt, like Till, traveled South to visit family. The sculpture "Hero's Head", 1956 (representing the lynched head of Till) was one of the first welded sculptures that Hunt created. He witnessed Till's funeral and taught himself how to weld the very same summer. On January 6, 2003, Hunt would also attend Mamie Till's funeral out of reverence for what she did for her child and for the Civil Rights movement as a whole.

In 2023, Hunt finished a sculptural model for the monument Hero Ascending, a tribute to Emmett Till which will be installed at Till's childhood home.

European travel

Richard Hunt's Symbiosis was given to Howard University as a gift by former school trustee Hobart Taylor.

Upon graduating, Hunt was awarded the James Nelson Raymond Foreign Travel Fellowship. He sailed to England on the SS United States and then to Paris, where he leased a car, a Citroën 2CV, for travel to Spain, Italy, and eventually back to Paris. He spent most of his time in Florence, where he learned to cast his first sculptures in bronze, at the renowned Marinelli foundry. His time abroad solidified his belief that metal was the definitive medium of the twentieth century.

Military service

Hunt served in the United States Army from 1958 to 1960. He took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood. Hunt served as an illustrator for Brooke Army Medical Center.

Desegregation

On March 7, 1960, Mary Andrews, president of the local youth council of the NAACP, wrote letters to store managers in downtown San Antonio, Texas, who operated white-only lunch counters. Encouraged by the growing sit-in movement, she requested equal services be provided to all, regardless of race. Hunt in U.S. Army uniform went to lunch at Woolworth's on March 16, 1960. Seated at the counter, his order was taken, and he was served without incident. Hunt, the only known African American to eat at San Antonio's Woolworth's lunch counter that day, fulfilled Mary Andrews's vision of integration. This action, along with a handful of other African Americans at other lunch counters across the city, made San Antonio the first peaceful and voluntary lunch counter integration in the south.

Career

Hunt began to experiment with materials and sculpting techniques, influenced heavily by progressive twentieth-century artists. Hunt was inspired to focus on sculpture because of the 1950s exhibition called the Sculpture of the Twentieth Century that was held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. The Sculpture of the Twentieth Century included works of Pablo Picasso, Julio González, and David Smith. At the exhibition, Hunt for the first time saw various artworks of welded metal. Hunt was also inspired and paid respect to French sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon whose 1914 bronze "Horse" was instructional. Seeing these artists' works led Hunt to teach himself how to solder wire to create small figures. He would later go on to create both figurative and abstract shapes by learning to weld metal in 1955.

Winged Form, 1987, Chicago, IL

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hunt used car junkyards as his quarries and turned bumpers and fenders into abstract, welded sculptures. Hunt also focused on linear-spatial arrangement of his materials where he followed Julio González's footsteps into three-dimensional structures. This experimentation garnered critically positive response from the art community, such that Hunt was exhibited at the Artists of Chicago and Vicinity Show and the American Show, where the Museum of Modern Art purchased a piece for its collection. He was the youngest artist to exhibit at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, a major international survey exhibition of modern art.

Hunt received his first sculpture commission in 1967 known as Play, which was commissioned by the State of Illinois Public Art Program. The making of this sculpture led him to many other public commissions considered to be his second career. Hunt completed more public sculptures than any other artist in the country. His signature pieces include Jacob's Ladder at the Carter G. Woodson Library in Chicago and Flintlock Fantasy in Detroit.

Hunt was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson as one of the first artists to serve on the governing board of the National Endowment for the Arts and he also served on boards of the Smithsonian Institution. From 1980 to 1988, Hunt served as Commissioner of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art. From 1994 to 1997, Hunt served on the Smithsonian Institution's National Board of Directors.

In 1971, Hunt acquired a deactivated electrical substation near northern Chicago and repurposed it into a metal welding sculpture studio. The station came equipped with a bridge crane, which was convenient for moving large sculpture pieces, and a spacious 40-foot (12 m) ceiling. While handling the metal, Hunt worked with two assistants. Hunt described metalworks as "free play of forms evolving, developing and contrasting with one another."

Flintlock Fantasy or the Promise of Force, 1991–1996

Slowly Toward the North, 1984, welded Cor-Ten steel, 59"H × 34"W × 84"D (150 × 86 × 213 cm). The sculpture commemorates the Great Migration.

In 2014, the Chicago Cultural Center celebrated Hunt's career to date with the exhibition Sixty Years of Sculpture.

On February 26, 2022, the Obama Foundation announced the commission of the sculpture Book Bird for the Barack Obama Presidential Center. The sculpture which was completed, is an elaboration from a piece Hunt created as an award to supporters of the United Negro College Fund. The Obama Foundation stated, "This beautiful piece encapsulates the progress one can make through reading—embodying the inspiration we hope all young people take away when they visit the Obama Presidential Center." Barack Obama told Hunt, "I've been a huge admirer of your work for a long time, and Michelle has as well."

A 352-page volume on the seven-decade career of Richard Hunt was published in 2022. It includes a foreword, three scholarly essays, an in-depth interview, and an extensive illustrated chronology of Hunt's life. The volume features an introduction by Courtney J. Martin, text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, and LeRonn Brooks, an interview by Adrienne Childs, and a chronology by Jon Ott. Oprah Daily declared it as "A lavish, trenchant retrospective of our most prominent Black sculptors."

The Getty Research Institute acquired the archive of Richard Hunt in October 2022. The Richard Hunt archive contains approximately 800 linear feet of detailed notes and correspondence, notebooks, sketchbooks, photographic documentation, financial records, research, ephemera, blueprints, posters, drawings, and lithographs, as well as a selection of wax models for public sculptures. "Richard Hunt is one of the foremost American artists of the mid- to late-20th century," says LeRonn Brooks, associate curator for modern and contemporary collections. "I am thrilled that Getty, whom I first became affiliated with through my participation in the Getty Center for Education in the Arts during the 1980s, will be the home of my archive," says Richard Hunt. "The entirety of my papers, photographs, letters, and sketches trace the arc of my career and my contribution to art history. I hope that my archive will serve not only as a remembrance but an inspiration to others."

In November 2023, White Cube announced representation of Richard Hunt and an exhibition of his work at their New York gallery.

Museum of Modern Art

Hunt's work has been exhibited 12 times at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, including a major solo retrospective in 1971, when Hunt was only 35 years old. Titled The Sculpture of Richard Hunt, March 25 – July 9, 1971, he became the first African American sculptor to be given a retrospective by MoMA.

National Endowment for the Arts

Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts, the governing body of the National Endowment for the Arts. He was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.

Monuments

Hunt created major sculptures and monuments for some of the United States' greatest heroes, including Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, John Jones, Jesse Owens, Ida B. Wells and Hobart Taylor Jr. His massive 30-foot-wide (9 m) bronze, Swing Low (2016), hangs from the ceiling of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a monument to the African American Spiritual. Since 2017, another welded Hunt sculpture, Hero Construction (1958), stands as the centerpiece of The Art Institute of Chicago.

We Will, 2005, Chicago, IL

Statements by Richard Hunt

In some works it is my intention to develop the kind of forms nature might create if only heat and steel were available to her.

Everything that exists, natural or man made, contains some sculptural quality or property.

One of the central themes in my work is the reconciliation of the organic and the industrial.

I must, I can, I will provide the physical evidence of me and my family having lived upon this earth, this planet. In the great scheme of things it is less than a drop in the bucket but it pleases me to be able to leave this evidence here for a time.

Imagining a world without racial hierarchy, I work as if race did not exist.

Sculpture is not a self-declaration but a voice of and for my people. Over all a rich fabric; under all about the dynamism of the African American people.

I have always been interested in the concept of freedom on the personal and universal levels: political freedom, freedom to think and to feel. As an African American living in the United States, obviously issues like segregation laws, the civil rights movement in the 1960s or South Africa have been on my mind when I have dealt with the concept of freedom. But freedom also relates to my career as an artist: freedom of mind, thought and imagination.

My own use of winged forms in the early '50s is based on mythological themes, like Icarus and Winged Victory. It's about, on the one hand, trying to achieve victory or freedom internally. It's also about investigating ideas of personal and collective freedom. My use of these forms has roots and resonances in the African-American experience and is also a universal symbol.

Death

Hunt died on December 16, 2023, at his Chicago home. According to a statement posted to his website, he "passed away peacefully". He was 88.

Accolades and works

Hunt was the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees.

Selected awards

• 1956 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
• 1957 James Nelson Raymond Traveling Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• 1957 Pauline Palmer Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
• 1961 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
• 1962 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
• 1962 Walter M. Campana Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
• 1962 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1965 Tamarind Artist Fellowship, Ford Foundation
• 1970 Award, Cassandra Foundation
• 1980 James Van Der Zee Lifetime Achievement Award, Brandywine Workshop and Archives
• 1990 Sidney R. Yates Art Advocacy Award, Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation
• 1993 Laureate, Lincoln Academy of Illinois
• 1997 Artists Award, The Studio Museum in Harlem
• 1998 Distinguished Artist, The Union League Club of Chicago
• 1998 Member, American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 1999 Chicago African American History Maker Award, The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago
• 1999 Member, National Academy of Design
• 2003 Harry W. Watrous Prize and Elizabeth N. Watrous Medal, National Academy of Design
• 2004 Archibald Motley Jr. History Maker Award for Distinction in Visual Arts, Chicago History Museum
• 2005 Malvina Hoffman Artists Fund Award, National Academy of Design
• 2009 Charlotte Dunwiddie Prize, National Academy of Design
• 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award, International Sculpture Center
• 2010 Legacy Award, United Negro College Fund
• 2011 Ruth Horwich Award to a Famous Chicago Artist, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs
• 2014 Fifth Star Award, City of Chicago
• 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, Howard University
• 2015 Alain Locke International Art Award, Detroit Institute of Arts
• 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award, Partners for Livable Communities
• 2017 Legendary Landmark's Honoree, Landmarks Illinois
• 2022 Legends and Legacy Award, Art Institute of Chicago
• 2022 Richard Hunt Day proclaimed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, City of Chicago, June 10
• 2023 Chicago Public Library Foundation Arts Award
• 2023 Dorsky Lifetime Achievement Award, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
• 2023 Music of the Baroque Honoree, Chicago
• 2023 Richard Hunt Day proclaimed by First Lady of Illinois MK Pritzker, April 24

Source

Honorary degrees

• 1972 Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL
• 1973 Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
• 1976 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• 1977 Illinois State University, Normal
• 1979 Colorado State University, Fort Collins
• 1979 School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• 1984 Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
• 1986 Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL
• 1987 Roosevelt University, Chicago
• 1991 Tufts University, Medford, MA
• 1996 Columbia College, Chicago
• 1997 Governors State University, University Park, IL
• 2004 North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro
• 2007 University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
• 2013 Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
• 2022 Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
• 2023 University of Southern Indiana, Evansville IN

Source

Selected works

• Hero Construction (1958), Chicago
• A Bridge Across and Beyond (1978), Washington, D.C.
• Wing Generator (1980) University of Notre Dame, Indiana
• Symbiosis (c. 1981), Washington, D.C.
• Build-Grow (1986), Jamaica, Queens, New York
• Build-Grow (1992), Washington, D.C.
• Swing Low (2016), Washington, D.C.
• The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument, Chicago

Selected public collections

• Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
• Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
• Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth
• Applewood-Ruth Mott Foundation, Flint, MI
• Art, Design and Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Art in Embassies, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC
• Art Institute of Chicago
• Art Museum of the University of Memphis
• Baltimore Museum of Art
• Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
• Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
• Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
• British Museum
• Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
• The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
• Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
• Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
• The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
• The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
• David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Muncie, IN
• The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
• de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• DePaul Art Museum, DePaul University, Chicago
• Denver Art Museum
• Detroit Institute of Arts
• The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago
• Elmhurst University Art Collection, Elmhurst, IL
• Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
• Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles
• Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
• Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI
• Gallery of Art, Howard University, Washington, DC[JB1] [JO2]
• Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens
• Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
• Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta
• Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT
• Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN
• Illinois State Museum, Springfield
• Indianapolis Museum of Art
• The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• The Jewish Museum, New York
• Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
• Koehnline Museum of Art, Oakton Community College, Des Plaines, IL
• Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Krasl Art Center, Saint Joseph, MI
• Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City, IN
• McCutchan Art Center/Pace Galleries, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville
• McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
• Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, OH
• Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN
• Milwaukee Art Museum
• Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
• Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI
• Museum Moderner Kunst (mumok), Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna
• Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
• Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC
• Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY
• Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park, Governors State University, University Park, IL
• National Academy of Design, New York
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
• National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC
• The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
• Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York
• New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
• North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC
• Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
• Obama Presidential Center
• Paul R. Jones Museum, University of Alabama Museums, Tuscaloosa
• Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
• Peoria Riverfront Museum, Peoria, IL[JB3] [JO4]
• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
• Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
• Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
• RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
• Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz
• SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
• Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
• Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
• Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
• Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
• Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO
• Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
• Swope Art Museum, Terre Haute, IN
• Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA
• Tougaloo College Art Collections, Tougaloo, MS
• Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford, MA
• UCF Art Gallery, University of Central Florida, Orlando
• University Museum at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
• The University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City
• Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
• Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
• Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
• Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Sources

• Payne, Les (1997). "The Life and Art of Richard Hunt". Newsday (January 9): Sect. B, pp. 6–7, 23.
• Brockington, Horace (1997). "Richard Hunt, The Studio Museum in Harlem". Review (January 15): 10–12.
• Schmerler, Sarah (October 1997). "Richard Hunt, The Studio Museum in Harlem". Sculpture: 54–55.
• Baltimore Museum of Art, and Jay McKean Fisher. Prints by a Sculptor: Richard Hunt. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1979.
• Castro, Jan Garden (May–June 1998). "Richard Hunt: Freeing the Human Soul". Sculpture: 34–39. Archived from the original on July 13, 2010. Retrieved February 28, 2009.