RICHARD HUNT
September 12, 1935 - December 16, 2023
"For nearly five decades, Hunt ranked among the foremost American sculptors."
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- Randall Griffey, Head Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Richard Howard Hunt, 88, of Chicago passed away peacefully on Saturday, December 16, 2023 at his home. A private funeral service will be held in Chicago. A celebration of art and life, open to the public, will be held in Chicago in the spring, with dates to be announced.
Born in Chicago on September 12, 1935, Richard Hunt was one of the most important sculptors this nation has produced. His prolific art career spanned seven decades. Hunt's metal sculpture is notable for its widespread presence in museum collections and many public monuments installed across the U.S. Despite challenges for African-American artists during his lifetime, 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.
A descendant of slaves brought to this country through the port of Savannah, Georgia, Hunt grew up on the South Side of Chicago, first in Woodlawn and then Englewood. His father was a barber and his mother was the first Black female librarian in the city of Chicago. During his youth, he was immersed in Chicago's cultural and artistic heritage through art lessons at the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) and the Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Regular visits to Chicago’s major public museums trained his eye and captured his interest in art. Hunt would go on to develop an extensive collection of African Art, which served as an inspiration for his work.
In 1953, the landmark exhibition Sculpture of the Twentieth Century was held at the Art Institute of Chicago. During this exhibit, Hunt studied the artworks of welded metal and became inspired by the works of Julio Gonzalez, Picasso, David Smith, and Alberto Giacometti, among others. Hunt attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) on a scholarship from 1953-57 where he focused on sculpture while earning his B.A.E.
When Hunt was nineteen years old he witnessed the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in Chicago. Till, who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, had grown up only two blocks from the Woodlawn home where Hunt was born. Hunt would later remark, “What happened to [Till] could have happened to me.” Hunt went on to create art shaped by this experience, which influenced both his artistic expression and his commitment to the cause of Civil Rights.
Inspired by Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, and shaken by the death of Emmett Till, Hunt taught himself how to weld and began composing found metal objects into art. Only two years later, he gained national recognition when the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired his sculpture, Arachne. In 1967, after the Chicago Picasso was unveiled, Hunt began creating works of Cor-Ten steel and later bronze and stainless steel which he continued using throughout his career. Hunt also created works of cast metal, usually aluminum or bronze, and was an accomplished draftsman who created drawings, lithographs, and screenprints, in addition to many sketched works.
After graduating from the SAIC, Hunt went to Europe for a year to study art and worked at the famous Marinelli foundry in Florence. While in Italy, Hunt married fellow SAIC classmate Bettye Hunt in Florence in 1957. They welcomed a daughter, Cecilia, in 1962 and subsequently divorced in 1966. He returned to the U.S. in 1958 when he was called to serve in the military. During that same year, Hunt held his first solo exhibition in New York at the Alan Gallery.
On March 16, 1960, while serving in the U.S. Army and stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Hunt was the first African American to be served at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Alamo Plaza. This brave action made San Antonio the first peaceful and voluntary lunch counter integration in the South.
Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. Hunt created abstract welded sculptures by acquiring bumpers and fenders from scrap yards, which became a signature of Hunt’s work. He was only 35 years old at the time of his 1971 exhibition at MoMA, the first retrospective for an African American sculptor at the museum. The exhibit titled The Sculpture of Richard Hunt included fifty-five sculptures, eight drawings, and twelve prints. In addition, in 1981 Hunt served as one of eight jurors, the sole African American, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition in Washington, D.C.
Hunt sculpted major monuments and sculptures for some of our country’s greatest heroes, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Owens, Hobart Taylor, Jr., and Ida B. Wells. His sculptures commemorate events from the slave trade and the Middle Passage to the Great Migration. His massive 30-foot, 1,500-pound bronze, Swing Low, a monument to the African American Spiritual, hangs from the ceiling of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Hunt’s masterpiece, Hero Construction, stands as the centerpiece of the grand staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2022, Barack Obama commissioned Richard Hunt as the first artist to create a work, Book Bird, for the Obama Presidential Center.
A major artist's monograph, Richard Hunt, was published in 2022, becoming the definitive survey of Hunt's work and career. In addition, that same year, the Getty Research Institute (GRI) acquired the Richard Hunt Archive. The GRI noted that “throughout his career, Hunt was central to important landmarks in African American art history and Civil Rights-era action.” Hunt’s archive, over 800 linear feet, is one of the largest artists' archives in the country.
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.” That artistic freedom was recognized and celebrated by the many institutions from which he received 18 honorary degrees and held over twenty professorships and artist residencies at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Northwestern, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Illinois.
Hunt served on dozens of boards, committees, and councils, including serving as a Commissioner for the National Museum of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Hunt received more than 30 major awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center, the Fifth Star Award from the City of Chicago, and the Legends and Legacy Award from the Art Institute of Chicago. This year, April 24, 2023, was proclaimed “Richard Hunt Day” by Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker, celebrating his life’s achievements and recognizing Hunt as one of our country’s greatest artists.
Hunt recently completed the sculptural model for a monument to Emmett Till, Hero Ascending, to be installed at Till’s childhood home in Chicago. It will commemorate Till and the tragic event that gave rise to the modern Civil Rights movement and to shaping the career of the sculptor, Richard Hunt. Hunt is survived by his daughter Cecilia, an artist, and his sister Marian, a retired librarian, both of whom live in Chicago.
Remembering Richard Hunt
The New York Times, December 16, 2023 online; also in print on December 20, 2023, Section A, Page 21
"The goal is to wander, wander through the unknown in search of the unknown, all the while leaving your mark."
- Richard Hunt
From The New York Times
"The Artists We Lost in 2023, in Their Words"
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
"Hunt’s stature and impact cannot be overstated."
December 19, 2023
Smithsonian American Art Museum
"Hunt ranked among the foremost American sculptors."
December 21, 2023
The Washington Post
"Hunt’s early career paralleled the rise of the modern civil rights movement."
December 19, 2023
ARTnews
"An epic engagement with Black history."
December 18, 2023
ARTforum
"The world’s preeminent African American abstract sculptor."
December 18, 2023
School of the Art Institute (SAIC)
"One of School of the Art Institute's most heroic creators."
December 18, 2023
Hyperallergic
"The first Black artist appointed to the National Council of the Arts, Hunt is celebrated for public works rooted in civil rights and the natural world."​
December 18, 2023
Artsy
"Hunt, known for his significant contributions to public art and the civil rights movement, has passed away."
December 18, 2023
Los Angeles Times
"Renowned sculptor of public art, inspired by the civil rights movement."
December 18, 2023
United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
"Hunt used his platform and influence to advocate for the United Negro College Fund and historically Black colleges and universities."
December 19, 2023
Chicago Tribune
"Hunt’s work has been recognized for the mark it has made on Chicago and the world."
December 17, 2023
Chicago Sun-Times
"A lifelong advocate for equity and inclusion, Hunt recently completed a model for a monument to Till that is to be installed at the childhood home of the civil rights icon."
December 16, 2023
NPR - WBEZ Chicago
Hunt was "one of the most important figures in art history."
December 22, 2023
Chicago Crusader
"A pioneering sculptor and beloved figure in the art world."
December 18, 2023
Chicago Defender
"The foremost African-American sculptor of the 20th Century."
December 18, 2023
Raclin Murphy Museum of Art (formerly Snite Museum of Art)
"Richard Hunt is among the most beloved figures in Contemporary art and one of the nation's finest sculptors."
December 19, 2023
The Art Newspaper
"One of the United States’s most prolific and important sculptors."
December 18, 2023
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