RICHARD HUNT

His art harmoniously blends contrasting elements—merging the natural with the industrial, the surreal with the abstract, and geometric forms with organic shapes. Driven by a love for the environment and a sense of spirituality, Hunt explored themes of myth and transformation. A core aspect of his approach was a commitment to freedom, advocating for personal liberation and expanding the limits of political and artistic expression. His innovative techniques and unique combination of mechanical and organic elements transformed the landscape of metal sculpture, creating new styles that altered American modernist art. Emerging from a rich tapestry of cultural influences, his journey showcases both his artistic growth and the racial obstacles he faced, highlighting a narrative of innovation, accomplishment, and a legacy that continues to inspire artists.

Richard Hunt was born in Chicago on September 12, 1935. A descendant of slaves brought to the U.S. 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 a librarian. 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 African art. Hunt would go on to develop an extensive collection of African Art, with more than 1,000 artifacts, which inspired his work.

In the spring of 1953, he encountered the work of Spanish sculptor Julio González in the exhibition Sculpture of the Twentieth Century at the Art Institute of Chicago. González’s forged, hammered and welded metal sculptures became one of the formative influences on the young artist. Hunt enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in the fall of 1953, after receiving a prestigious scholarship from the Chicago Public School Art Society. 

Inspired in part by González, Hunt decided to solely become a metal sculptor, teaching himself to solder, and later weld, the discarded metal that he scavenged from local scrapyards in Chicago. By 1955, Hunt would sell his soldered wire sculptures, along with paintings and drawings, at local art fairs and galleries, marking the formal beginning of his career as an artist. 

When Hunt was 19 years old, in September of 1955, he witnessed the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in Chicago. Till, who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi, had grown up only two blocks from the Woodlawn home where Hunt was born. Hunt later remarked, “What happened to [Till] could have happened to me.” Hunt went on to create art shaped by this experience, which influenced his artistic expression and commitment to the Civil Rights Movement. In the immediate aftermath, he made two works: Prometheus (1956), where Till’s suffering is linked to the myth of the god of fire, and Hero’s Head (1956), which immortalized the image of Till’s disfigured head in welded steel. Throughout his life and work, the Civil Rights Movement remained a driving force, shaping Hunt’s artistic process as he commemorated those individuals central to the cause. 

In the spring of 1957, at just 21 years of age and a senior at the SAIC, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) acquired Hunt’s welded steel sculpture, Arachne (1956), earning him national recognition. Arachne–which Hunt based on the Greek myth of Arachne, a skilled weaver transformed into a spider by the enraged goddess of weaving, Athena–was included in MoMA’s 1957 exhibition, Recent American Acquisitions. MoMA’s acquisition of this welded steel figure catapulted Hunt to the forefront of modern contemporary sculpture. 

Upon graduating from the SAIC in 1957, Hunt won the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship for Untitled (1957). The sculpture was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s iron sculpture Woman in the Garden (1929–30), a collaboration with the Spanish sculptor Julio González, which served as an homage to the French Surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire. The fellowship enabled Hunt to travel to Europe, specifically England, France, Spain and Italy to study art for one year. He worked at the famous Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli in Florence, where he learned to cast and created his first bronze sculptures. He also visited Constantin Brâncuși’s studio in Paris, a combined living and working space that would later inspire his decision to live and work in his own studio at West Lill Avenue in Chicago.

Hunt returned to the U.S. in 1958, when he was called to serve in the U.S. Army at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. Incredibly, during that same year, Hunt held his first solo exhibition in New York at the Alan Gallery. However, due to his military service, he could not attend the opening reception.

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On March 16, 1960, while still serving in the army in San Antonio, Hunt was the first African American to be served at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Alamo Plaza. This determined act of conscience made San Antonio the first peaceful and voluntary lunch counter integration in the South. Hunt would return to Chicago in the summer of 1960, and by 1962 establish his first formal studio space on North Cleveland Avenue. 

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Inspired by the unveiling of the colossal Chicago Picasso in 1967, Hunt began creating works of Cor-Ten steel and later bronze and stainless steel, which he continued using throughout his career. Hunt also produced 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.

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Hunt to a six-year term on the National Council on the Arts, filling the seat left vacant by the untimely death of the sculptor David Smith. Hunt was the first African American visual artist to serve on the council.

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In 1971, at only 35 years of age, Hunt achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective at MoMA. The exhibition, The Sculpture of Richard Hunt, featured 55 sculptures, eight drawings and 12 prints. Hunt’s exhibition and the simultaneous Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual, devoted to the Harlem Renaissance painter Romare Bearden (1911–1988), are the museum’s first solo shows by African American artists.

Also in 1971, Hunt purchased a former Chicago Railway Systems Company electrical substation, built in 1909, at 1017 West Lill Avenue, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The structure had natural light from cathedral-like windows that rose up to forty-five feet as well as an overhead bridge crane ideally suited for moving large sculptures, which allowed him to significantly increase the scale of his welded works. The new studio space enabled Hunt to pursue larger public commissions. 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-Barnett.

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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 (2016), a monument to the African American Spiritual, hangs from the ceiling of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Hunt’s masterpiece, Hero Construction (1958), stands as the centerpiece of the grand staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago. Barack Obama commissioned Richard Hunt as the first artist to create a work, Book Bird (2023), for the Obama Presidential Center, which will be installed when the center and library open.

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​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.

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​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 has been recognized and celebrated by multiple institutions from which he received 17 honorary degrees and held more than twenty professorships and artist residencies at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Northwestern, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Illinois.

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Hunt's distinguished art career spanned seven decades. His metal sculpture is notable for its widespread presence in museum collections and many public monuments installed across the U.S. Hunt’s work has been in more than 170 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 125 public museums across the globe. Hunt made the largest contribution to public sculpture in the United States, with more than 160 public commissions gracing prominent locations in 24 states and Washington, D.C.

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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. In addition, 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.  

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Hunt completed the sculptural model for a monument to Emmett Till, to be installed at Till’s childhood home in Chicago. Hunt’s Hero Ascending will commemorate Till and the tragic event that led to the modern Civil Rights Movement and shaped Hunt’s career. 

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In 2023, Hunt established the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation to advance public awareness, education, and appreciation of his life and art. April 24, 2023 was proclaimed “Richard Hunt Day” by Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker, celebrating his life’s achievements and recognition of Hunt as one of our country’s greatest artists.

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Richard Hunt passed away peacefully at his home in Chicago on December 16, 2023.

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​For more information, please reference:
Art Institute of Chicago - Legends & Legacy: Honoring Richard Hunt (2022) (video)
 

MCA DNA: Richard Hunt (2015) (video)

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Richard Hunt to create installation at the Obama Presidential Center (2022) (video)​

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Follow @RichardHuntSculptor on Instagram and Facebook

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​​​For Biography and Archival Inquiries, please contact:

Jon Ott, Biographer of Richard Hunt

jon.ott@richardhuntsculptor.org

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General Inquiries:

info@richardhuntsculptor.org