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Richard Hunt

British palaeographer and bibliographer (1908-79)

Richard Hunt (sculptor) (born September 12, 1935) is an American sculptor. In the second half of the 20th century, he became "the foremost African-American abstract scul ptor and artist of public sculpture." Hunt studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1950s. While there received multiple prizes for his work. In 1971, he was the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective at the 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.

Richard Hunt in 1962

With a career spanning seven decades, Hunt has held over 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the world.

Quotes

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  • "A sculptor can be thought of as the sort of person who can reduce impressions of things, responses, and ideas about things into sculptural forms."
    • 1957: The Sculpture of Richard Hunt (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1971), 13–15
  • "The creation of a sculpture can be considered the process by which a sculptor demonstrates to himself whether or not he is creating a sculpture."
    • 1967: The Sculpture of Richard Hunt (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1971), 13–15
  • "Everything that exists, natural or man made, contains some sculptural quality or property."
    • 1967: The Sculpture of Richard Hunt (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1971), 13–15
  • "One hopes to see from what has been done, what can be done."
    • 1967: The Sculpture of Richard Hunt (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1971), 13–15
  • "When I enlarge pieces, however, I consider myself to be re-creating the piece in full scale rather than simply copying a small piece. This process of re-creating the piece in the larger scale gives the full-scale work a spontaneity and it keeps the process more open and alive for me as a sculptor through the opportunity to re-experience the ideas that gave rise to the initial subject. . . ."
    • 1987 (“Work that was initiated . . .”): Samella Lewis, “Richard Hunt,” International Review of African American Art 7, no. 2 (1987): 24–25
  • "I’ve come to see the different metals as providing a palette. Stain-less steel and aluminum being sort of cool, bronze and Cor-Ten steel being warm and having, obviously, a variety of hues and colors depending on the heat and the patina one might use. This potential of a rich palette of colors and textures contributes to an ease of developing within the metal the kind of ideas that I seem to have."
    • 1987 (“Work that was initiated . . .”): Samella Lewis, “Richard Hunt,” International Review of African American Art 7, no. 2 (1987): 24–25
  • "One of the central themes in my work is the reconciliation of the organic and the industrial. I see my work as forming a kind of bridge between what we experience in nature and what we experience from the urban, industrial, technology-driven society we live in. I like to think that within the work that I approach most successfully there is a resolution of the tension between the sense of freedom one has in contemplating nature and the sometimes restrictive, closed feeling engendered by the rigors of the city, the rigors of the industrial environment."
    • 1987 (“Work that was initiated . . .”): Samella Lewis, “Richard Hunt,” International Review of African American Art 7, no. 2 (1987): 24–25
  • "The theme of much of my work can be characterized as a fusion or harmonization of the vital tensions existing between dualities, such as the organic and the geometric, the organic and the abstract, or the past and the present, the traditional and the contemporary."
    • 1987 (“Work that was initiated . . .”): Samella Lewis, “Richard Hunt,” International Review of African American Art 7, no. 2 (1987): 24–25
  • "Public sculpture responds to the dynamics of a community, or of those in it, who have a use for sculpture. It is this aspect of use, of utility, that gives public sculpture its vital and lively place in the public mind."
    • 1989: Judd Tully and Eleanor Flomenhaft, Richard Hunt (New York: Dorsky Gallery, 1989), 3.
  • "The challenges utility brings to the sculptor’s mind and art, are as varied as the people and the sites encountered with each commission. As sculptors in our time respond creatively to the challenges that the opportunities for the greater utilization of sculpture impose, we establish links with the greatest traditions in sculpture, and with the largest and most diverse audience sculpture has ever had."
    • 1989: Judd Tully and Eleanor Flomenhaft, Richard Hunt (New York: Dorsky Gallery, 1989), 3.
  • "I came to see the strength of my own roots and past. The success of the early phase of the civil rights movement, which resulted in voting rights legislation and the breaking down of obvious barriers like segregated drinking fountains and public accommodations, gave one a sense of being able to prevail. What happened after that was chastening, tempering. Another thing, too, is to discover the obvious—that the foundations of American society were built upon the backs of our forefathers."
    • 1998: Jan Garden Castro, “Richard Hunt: Freeing the Human Soul,” Sculpture 17, no. 5 (May–June 1998): 34–39.
  • "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. People have always seen birds flying and wished they could fly."
    • 1998: Jan Garden Castro, “Richard Hunt: Freeing the Human Soul,” Sculpture 17, no. 5 (May–June 1998): 34–39.
  • "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. On the artistic level, freedom was a significant principle in the earlier art movements, such as Surrealism or Abstract Expressionism. More recently, public art focuses on the issue of universal freedom."
    • 2001: Richard Hunt: Wings (Des Plaines, IL: Oakton Community College, 2001), 7.
  • "The possibilities of developing the sense of movement in a sculpture are inherent in the material and in the technique, that is to say, forming, bending, stretching, cutting, and twisting metal parts. I like to suggest movement or give an impression of movement."
    • 2011: “Oral History of Richard Hunt,” 70+: Chicago Visual Artist Oral History Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive, The Art Institute of Chicago, interview conducted by Linda L. Kramer and Sandra Binion, August 11, 2011, audio file available at http:// https://artic.contentdm.oclc.org /digital/collection/artists/id/17/rec/1
  • "I like working with my hands, making things and holding things. As a sculptor, I talk about using your head, your heart, and your hands— you think about things, you feel things, and then you use your hands to try to represent what that is, in some material."
    • 2011: “Oral History of Richard Hunt,” 70+: Chicago Visual Artist Oral History Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive, The Art Institute of Chicago, interview conducted by Linda L. Kramer and Sandra Binion, August 11, 2011, audio file available at http:// https://artic.contentdm.oclc.org /digital/collection/artists/id/17/rec/1
  • "Trees have long been my metaphor, symbolic of my inner and outer growth—the taproot delving deep into my conscious and subconscious, the origins of my art, life, and family; peripheral roots branching out into other communities, cultures, a cosmos of interweaving inter- actions; a trunk and branches reaching up and out beyond their tips, leaves, fruit, falling here and there."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "I must, I can, I will provide the physical evidence of my and my family’s 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."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "It is often felt that the lyric or romantic sensibility cannot express itself in iron. The intent of a good deal of my work is to demonstrate that it is a possibility no more foreign to iron than to marble. "
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "My sculpture begins and ends with what can be done with metal. Between the beginning and end are other considerations. The drama of the process of each weld involves a change of state from solid to liquid and back to solid. Repetitions of this process bring about construction, a new constellation of the real and the imagined, ruminations in metal. The material basis of my sculpture is metallic opportunities. Bringing pressure to the right points, I draw the aesthetic out of the industrial process. To me, metal is alive. The forms tell their own story—how they resisted the torch and hammer. From the mill through the studio to the gallery, park, or plaza, the sculptor’s challenge is to bend the metal to his wishes, hammer it into his vision."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "To be creative is to not know what one is doing. The process of creation resolves the imbalance or irritation that initiated the desire to create something. Sculpture is a way of exploring, amplifying, and giving form to my enthusiasms, which are wide-ranging and often intersect each other, technically, emotionally, and spiritually."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Sometimes it is not about making art. Sometimes it is about making statements about culture and history or history and culture with or through art."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "The goal is to wander, wander through the unknown in search of the unknown, all the while leaving your mark. Art can do it all: a life of doing things, a life of making things."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Can the wisdom of the ages serve as the wisdom of the new age, the new millennium? Conventional wisdom is often not subject to or confirmed by independent research. The triumphal road for some can be a Trail of Tears for others. "
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Does becoming a critical thinker make you ever critical? You must stand somewhere on the stone steps of the drama."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Imagining a world without racial hierarchy, I work as if race did not exist. Look the world over, learn, enjoy, luxuriate, dream large, expansive dreams of a glorious future for ourselves and all mankind. Then, we turn our attention to what is humanly possible."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "I am the thinking person’s sculptor, joining metal manipulation to meaningful expression."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Sculpture is all about hard work and delayed gratification, and mysterious, harmonious, pleasantly jarring, revelatory spatial structures—having good times and bad times at the same time."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "Sculpture is not a self-declaration but a voice of and for my people—over all, a rich fabric; under all, the dynamism of the African American people."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "I am a Chicago artist because I am from this city; I’m a Black artist because I happen to be Black. These descriptions are sometimes useful to other people. But I’m also many other things—a man, a human being, an artist. Artists have a unique opportunity to make a difference . . . to look and work toward the future. Most people, by the nature of their work, have to think about what’s happening now, to serve as kind of custodians of our culture; but artists have the opportunity and responsibility to be forward-looking. We have the job of creating new ideas and visions for the future, and I’m pleased to be a part of that."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.
  • "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. My art is about art—embracing a vision of the future that is unlike past futures."
    • 2021 (COMPILED FROM NOTES WRITTEN 2001–21)(2022). Richard Hunt. GREGORY R. MILLER & CO. ISBN 9781941366448.

Quotes about person/work

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  • "Whether creating organic forms that rise from columnar bases or stacking airy clusters of winglike shapes, Hunt is speaking to the ideals of transformation and aspiration."
    • (From Yau's essay: Richard Hunt's Indisputable Achievement, Richard Hunt) Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs. Chronology by Jon Ott.⁠ Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.
    • John Yau, award-winning poet and art critic who has been publishing art criticism since 1978
  • "The history of Black people in the United States of America, no one needs to be reminded, has been constantly marked by rejection and rupture. Thus, in his art, from the outset, Hunt has focused on alternative possibilities, such as redemption and freeing ourselves from the manacles of history. It is time that we honor his vision."
    • (From Yau's essay: Richard Hunt's Indisputable Achievement, Richard Hunt) Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs. Chronology by Jon Ott.⁠ Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.
    • John Yau, award-winning poet and art critic who has been publishing art criticism since 1978
  • "Hunt’s work represents an almost mythic continuum that assembles themes of ancestry, modernity, nation, and memory: a man, his legacy, and myth having very real places in the world as one."
    • (From Brooks' essay: A Hero's Construction, Richard Hunt) Richard Hunt. Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs. Chronology by Jon Ott.⁠ Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.
    • LeRonn P. Brooks, Associate Curator for Modern and Contemporary Collections at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, specializing in African American collections and serving as lead curator for the African American Art History Initiative (AAAHI)
  • "The artist’s approach to sculpture, and to metal as a material, is an ongoing expression and articulation of a life lived in and as sculpture."
    • From Carter's essay: Permanent Creation: Richard Hunt in Flux, Richard Hunt. Richard Hunt. Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs. Chronology by Jon Ott.⁠ Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.
    • Jordan Carter, curator at the Dia Art Foundation, New York
  • "If we count [Richard Hunt] among the Americans who simultaneously motivated a critique of the machine age and uncovered nuance within it by way of sculpture (Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Beverly Pepper, and either Smith, David or Tony), or those for whom the means of manufacture were experimental, often nostalgic and fetishized in equal parts (Anthony Caro, John Chamberlain, Mark di Suvero, Melvin Edwards, Hesse, and Judd), he stands out."
    • From the foreword of Richard Hunt. Richard Hunt. Introduction by Courtney J. Martin. Text by John Yau, Jordan Carter, LeRonn Brooks. Interview by Adrienne Childs. Chronology by Jon Ott.⁠ Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.
    • Courtney J. Martin, Director of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA)
  • "Hunt is one of the most gifted and assured artists working in the direct-metal, open-form medium—and I mean not only in his own country and generation, but anywhere in the world."
    • Kramer, H. (2011). The Age of the Avant-Garde: 1956-1972. United States: Transaction Publishers.
    • Hilton Kramer, New York Times art critic
  • "We have a young man here, Richard Hunt, who I think is a great sculptor. This man is an artist. It has nothing to do with race; it is that real spark, unfathomable, and unidentifiable, that is deeply felt. The power of his sculpture is unassailable."
    • Bearden, Romare, et al. “The Black Artist in America: A Symposium.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 5, 1969, pp. 245–61. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3258415. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.
    • Hale Woodruff, artist
  • "Richard Hunt is a national treasure. Richard is someone who cares so much for his fellow man that his life’s work of sculpture is about helping human beings to appreciate each other."
  • "His sculpture has been hailed as the work of a master."
    • Russell L. Adams, Chairman of the Afro-American studies Department at Howard University
  • "Richard Hunt is one of the most admired sculptors of his generation."
    • [The Art Institute of Chicago's Legends and Legacy: Honoring Richard Hunt]
    • James Rondeau, President and Director of the Art Institute of Chicago
  • "Richard Hunt is one of the most important artists of our time."
    • [The Art Institute of Chicago's Legends and Legacy: Honoring Richard Hunt]
    • Ann Goldstein, deputy director and senior curator at large at the Art Institute of Chicago
  • "One of the most illustrious graduates of the School of the Art Institute, Richard Hunt is a Chicago Legend and one of the most important sculptors of our time"
    • [Virtual Conversation: Richard Hunt—Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze]
    • Jordan Carter, curator Dia Art Foundation
  • "Richard Hunt’s art is American treasure to be discovered, rediscovered, reflected upon, and protected."
    • David J. Grain, CEO of Grain Management
  • "One of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century."
  • "I first saw a story about Richard in one of those picture magazines when I was a younger teenager. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Black artist featured in any of those publications and I never forgot it. He's been someone I've looked up to ever since."
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