"I have founded the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation in hopes that what I have accomplished in my life will transcend my time on earth.
I sincerely hope that people continue to find my art useful for whatever use they have of it. And more so, I hope that my art provides a way to improve their lives and the communities where they reside."
- Richard Hunt
The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation was incorporated in the state of Illinois in 2023 to become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit at the direction of its founder, Richard Hunt. The foundation welcomes support from all who appreciate the incredible contributions of one of America's most important sculptors.
Mission
The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation advances public awareness, education, and appreciation of the life and art of American sculptor Richard Hunt.
Vision
The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation's vision is to ensure that future generations fully appreciate the life and art of the American sculptor Richard Hunt by encouraging, inspiring, facilitating, educating, and supporting the public’s understanding of his work and his place in American and art history. In addition, the foundation aims to support the next generation of sculptors and artists.
Richard Hunt
Founder
As an artist and prominent American sculptor, Richard Hunt considered artistic freedom to be the most important aspect of his career, “I am interested more than anything else in being a free person. To me, that means that I can make what I want to make, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should make.”
At the age of 35, he became the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Hunt held over 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the globe. Hunt made the largest contribution to public art in the United States, with more than 160 public sculpture commissions gracing prominent locations in 24 states and Washington, D.C.
Hunt was a central figure in Civil Rights-era action and commemorated many African American icons. His body of work explores themes of the African diaspora, African and Western art, mythology, and Hunt's own ancestry, especially in relation to growth, expansion, freedom, movement, and flight.
Board of Directors
BK Fulton
Chair
BK Fulton is Chairman and CEO of Soulidifly Productions, a full feature film, TV, and stage production and investment company.
Fulton also is an author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and collector. Soulidifly Productions financially backs projects that often bring overlooked stories — and people — to light.
Soulidifly’s mission is to support multigenerational, multiethnic voices and stories from throughout history.
Jon Ott
Vice Chair
Jon Ott is a San Francisco-based software executive and is currently the Chief Revenue Officer of Kognitiv Corporation, a global loyalty software company. He is the official Biographer of Richard Hunt and author of the Illustrated Chronology of the recently published Artist’s Monograph titled Richard Hunt.
Ott is also Chair Emeritus of the International Sculpture Center, an organization that presented Hunt with the 2009 ISC Lifetime Achievement Award in Sculpture.
Michael Dinwiddie
Secretary, Treasurer
Michael Dinwiddie is a Professor of Dramatic Writing, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University, whose teaching interests include cultural studies, African American theater history, dramatic writing, filmmaking, and ragtime music.
Dinwiddie is a dramatist whose works have been produced in New York, regional, and educational theater. He is also the president of the August Wilson Society, an American Theatre Fellow and currently serves on the boards of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, and NewFest Film+TV LGBTQIA+.
Michael is a relative of Richard Hunt.
Anita Blanchard, MD
Board Member
Anita Blanchard, MD is a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, and previously was a professor at UChicago Medicine but has since retired. She is a past vice president and board member of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Dr. Blanchard and her husband, Marty Nesbitt, expressed to ARTnews that their art collection is “centered on artists of African descent and their excellence acknowledging our rich history from origins in Africa and celebrating triumphs in Europe and the U.S.”
Anita is on the board of trustees for the Art Institute Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
LeRonn P. Brooks
Board Member
LeRonn P. Brooks is the Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections specializing in African American collections at the Getty Research Institute.
Prior to working at the Getty, he was an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Lehman College and a curator for The Racial Imaginary Institute, founded by poet Claudia Rankine.
LeRonn’s interviews, essays, and poetry have appeared in publications for Bomb Magazine, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Spelman Museum of Art, Callaloo literary journal, The International Review of African American Art, and The Aperture Foundation.
Lisa C. Brown
Board Member
Lisa C. Brown is a creative entrepreneur whose passion for the arts and its capacity to transcend the boundaries of culture, geography and socioeconomic status has guided her career and personal endeavors.
She is an avid art collector who also opened her own gallery named “P Street Gallerie” in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. in 2014, which remained open for nearly a decade.
A philanthropic advocate for education, social justice and emerging visual artists, Lisa serves on several boards and advisory councils including The Board of Trustees for the Maret School in Washington D.C., The Advisory Board of Transformer DC, and the Advisory Council of the Williams-Franklin Foundation.
Michelle Dinwiddie-Segue
Board Member
Michelle Dinwiddie-Segue is an artist, potter, and Secretary for the Pewabic Society Board of Trustees. As a fundraiser, she has volunteered for the Dr. Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Orchards Children’s Services, and the Detroit Children's Museum.
Dinwiddie-Segue is a member of The Links, Incorporated; Jack & Jill of America, Inc.; and the Detroit Study Club, at 125 years old one of the oldest Black organizations in America.
Michelle is a relative of Richard Hunt.
Gary Gardner
Board Member
Gary Gardner and his wife, Denise, reside in Chicago, where they run the Gary and Denise Gardner Family Foundation and maintain a private art collection. The couple was awarded the Art Alliance of Illinois’ Citizen’s Advocate Award in 2018.
Denise Gardner chairs the Art Institute of Chicago’s Board of Trustees. Denise and Gary have been featured in The New York Times for the inspiring collection of African American artist-made work in their South Side Chicago home. With more than 100 pieces on display, the Gardners are champions of current local creatives as well as those from the past.
Theaster Gates
Board Member
Theaster Gates lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates work that focuses on space theory and land development, sculpture and performance.
Drawing on his interest and training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of art-world capital, Gates creates work that focuses on the possibility of the “life within things.” In all aspects of his work, he contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise.
Gates is also a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and the College.
Fred Giuffrida
Board Member
Fred Giuffrida retired at the end of 2022 after 27 years as a Managing Director of Horsley Bridge Partners, a firm that manages venture capital and private equity funds of funds.
Giuffrida has his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Giuffrida currently serves as a trustee of the Nevada Museum of Art and a director of the Renown Health Foundation and Friends of New Curators. He and his wife, Pamela J. Joyner, together have built a collection of more than 400 works, mainly abstract paintings, that were collected to help rewrite the role artists of color have played in art history.
Ann Goldstein
Board Member
Ann Goldstein serves as deputy director and senior curator at large at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). At the AIC, she championed the installation of Hunt’s masterpiece Hero Construction, 1958 atop the Women’s Board Grand Staircase in 2017, and co-organized (with Jordan Carter) Hunt’s solo exhibition at the museum in 2020.
A museum professional for forty years, Goldstein formerly served as director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In recognition of her work, the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College presented Goldstein with the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence in 2012.
Photo credit: Albrecht Fuchs
David Grain
Board Member
David Grain is the CEO of Grain Management, a private equity firm focused on global investments in the media and communications sectors, which he founded in 2006. Grain also founded and was formerly CEO of Grain Communications Group, Inc.
He chairs the Grain Family Foundation and currently is a member of the Advisory Board of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, the Smithsonian Institution’s Advisory Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is a Trustee of the Brookings Institution.
George E. Johnson, Sr.
Board Member
George E. Johnson, Sr. is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Johnson Products Company, an international cosmetics empire that was headquartered in Chicago, Ill. for 44 years. The company created iconic products such as Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen.
Johnson Products established Soul Train on national TV in 1971, and it was the first African American-owned company to be listed on the American Stock Exchange in 1971.
During his career, Johnson has received numerous honors for the contributions of the George E. Johnson Foundation and the George E. Johnson Educational Fund.
Johnson was an early patron of Richard Hunt and commissioned in the early 1970s the monumental Dynamic Pyramid, which stood outside of the headquarters of his business.
Jacquelyn E. Stone
Board Member
Jackie Stone is a Partner at McGuireWoods’ Richmond, Virginia office. Jackie served for more than 20 years as the firm’s global hiring partner and also served on the firm’s Board of Partners.
She was honored with the American Lawyer Media’s National Women in Law Lifetime Achievement Award.
Stone has served on multiple boards, including the Arts Council of Richmond. She also has been appointed by the Governor of Virginia to numerous boards and commissions, including the Virginia Commonwealth University Board of Visitors and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
Darrell Walker
Board Member
Darrell Walker is in his fifth season as Little Rock’s head basketball coach. His playing experience includes three years at the University of Arkansas and 10 seasons in the National Basketball Association, followed by a 20-year professional coaching career, including serving as head coach for two different NBA franchises. He boasts the distinction of being the only active coach with head coaching experience at the NBA, WNBA, Division II and Division I levels.
Walker played in the National Basketball Association for 10 seasons, winning an NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls in 1993.
He is an avid art collector and patron of the arts with a focus on African American art.