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November 16, 2023
White Cube is pleased to announce global representation of Richard Hunt (b. 1935, Chicago, Illinois), one of the leading American sculptors of the 20th century. The artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery will take place in spring 2024 at White Cube New York.
November 16, 2023
White Cube has announced global representation of pioneering American sculptor Richard Hunt, promising audiences near and far a re-introduction to Hunt’s cerebral, sinewy creations. First for the calendars, the gallery will present Hunt’s landmark Years of Pilgrimage (1999) at the upcoming Art Basel Miami Beach.
November 16, 2023
White Cube has announced its global representation of American sculptor Richard Hunt, born in 1935 in Chicago. Hunt, a pivotal figure in 20th century sculpture, will present his first solo exhibition at the New York-based gallery in spring 2024.
August 25, 2023
Hunt's Prometheus was on display in the British Museum's exhibition New acquisitions: Paul Bril to Wendy Red Star until September 10, 2023 and is now available to view by appointment in the Prints and Drawings Study Room. The print is a direct response to the lynching of Emmett Till, the cri de cœur of a young Black artist who had been among the thousands who viewed his open casket in Chicago and remained haunted by a photograph of Till's mutilated body that he had seen in Jet, a magazine aimed at the African American community.
August 22, 2023
Richard Hunt’s studio is a repository of creativity that can give one whiplash. Upon entering the Lill Avenue cavernous structure, one sees light, shadows, books, cardboard and metal ready to be metamorphosed into something transcendental. Artistic works are in progress, and an artist like Hunt is always in process amid pictures and maquettes of his earlier works with metal.
April 20, 2023
Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker hosted a cocktail reception at the Governor's Mansion the evening of Monday, April 24, 2023, to welcome Illinois' cultural leaders attending the "One State Conference and Capital Day" in Springfield. The First Lady will delivered a proclamation honoring world-renowned sculptor Richard Hunt and declared April 24, 2023, Richard Hunt Day in Illinois.
February 3, 2023
Join KANEKO and friends for the celebration and release of the Richard Hunt MONUMENTAL Exhibition Catalogue and the closing of the Richard Hunt Exhibition. Enjoy a sit-down conversation between Jon Ott, Richard Hunt’s biographer, and Stephan Grot, KANEKO’s Executive Director. They will discuss Richard Hunt’s sculptures within the exhibition that anchors observations and reflections on Richard’s life, work, and career trajectory.
January 3, 2023
The Best Black Art Books of 2022 explore the work of El Anatsui, Firelei Baez, Richard Hunt, Marilyn Nance, Henry Taylor, Black potters, Haitian artists, and more.
October 17, 2022
"The archive, estimated at approximately 800 linear feet, contains 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. At the heart of the archive are Hunt’s project files which contain complete records on every commission, project, exhibition, and body of work that Hunt has produced."
Summer 2022
In this feature documentary, producers Rana Segal and Laurie Little weave together the process of the creation of the monument of Ida B. Wells with her history and the sculptor’s history. Richard Hunt has been a major figure in American art for 40 years. We will show why a monument for this “shero” is so important at this time.
July 22, 2022
The Chicago collector John B. Davidson has recently donated two drawings by Hunt to the National Gallery of Art: a large, undated sheet of exploratory studies and a finished drawing from 1974. The first offers wonderful insights into the artist’s ruminations on abstracted forms unconnected to a specific sculpture, while the latter is the first major independent drawing by Hunt to enter the National Gallery’s collection.
June 9, 2022
The 2022 Legends and Legacy Award was presented on behalf of the Art Institute of Chicago by the Leadership Advisory Committee to iconic Chicago artist Richard Hunt.
February 28, 2022
The Obama Foundation has commissioned a sculpture, Book Bird, for the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago. Hunt’s sculpture will be placed in the Library Reading Garden outside of the new Chicago Public Library branch on the Obama Presidential Center campus. Book Bird will depict a bird taking flight from a book to illuminate how reading and learning allows readers to enter new places and fly free.
July 1, 2021
"This week, a Chicago committee revealed a new statue paying tribute to the anti-lynching and suffrage activist Ida B. Wells, making it the city’s first sculpture honoring a Black woman." - Smithsonian Magazine
June 30, 2021
The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument, created by famed sculptor Richard Hunt, is unveiled in Bronzeville on June 30, 2021.
February 9, 2021
Richard Hunt’s career trajectory reads like a modern-day version of a Baroque-era prodigy’s story. In 1957, while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the Museum of Modern Art purchased one of his works. Soon after, his sculptures were on display at the Whitney, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Exhibition: Sep 17, 2020–Nov 16, 2020 | Feb 11, 2021–Sep 20, 2021
The sculptures of Chicago-based artist Richard Hunt are a form of improvisation, an unfolding dialogue, as the artist expresses, “between me, the technique, and the material.” This exhibition draws its title, Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze, from a monumental bronze sculpture that exemplifies Hunt’s recent practice. Over the last six years, he has engaged in a durational approach of continually adding, removing, and reshaping the work, investigating the meaning of bronze both in relation to its mythological and material attributes, as well as its inherent transformative possibilities.
September 14, 2020
While a student in 1953, Richard Hunt attended “Sculpture of the 20th Century,” a traveling show at the Art Institute of Chicago in which he first saw the welded-steel work Spanish sculptor Julio González, a discovery that would set the course of his artistic career.
March 24, 1971
New York art critic Hilton Kramer reviews Richard Hunt's 1971 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) -- the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective at the museum.