An Extraordinary Talent
"The African-American heritage was very much a part of my upbringing within my home and our neighborhood . . . If you were going to succeed in the world, you needed to understand what Western culture was all about, but you also had your own understanding of who you were and where you were from."
- Richard Hunt
Born and Raised on Chicago's South Side
Richard Howard Hunt was born in the Woodlawn neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois, on September 12, 1935 to Etoria Inez Henderson Hunt and Cleophus Howard Hunt. In 1940, the family, including Hunt’s beloved younger sister, Marian Eustacia Hunt, found their home in Chicago’s vibrant Englewood neighborhood, where Hunt began cultivating his educational pursuits. Hunt's upbringing was deeply influenced by 1950s segregated Chicago and his family trips to visit extended family in Hart County, Georgia, where Hunt's father had grown up a sharecropper before moving to Chicago during the Great Migration. During his formative years, Hunt fully embraced Chicago's rich arts and cultural scene, showcasing an extraordinary gift for artistry.
Richard Hunt kneeling next to his parents, ca. 1938.
Richard Hunt (left) with his sister Marian (center) and Father Howard, Chicago, 1940.
Engaged with the Arts
Hunt thrived in an environment rich with religion, culture, politics, and music. The Hunt family was part of the congregations of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and Baptist churches on the South Side of Chicago, ingraining in Hunt a deep sense of community and spirituality. Together with his numerous excursions to the free public museums with his mother, a dedicated librarian, and the engaging debates in his father’s barbershop, these experiences profoundly influenced his artistic journey.
Richard Hunt at 5 years old.
"Richard Hunt’s career trajectory is a modern-day version of a Baroque-era prodigy’s story."
- Jonathan Rinck, Sculpture, February 9, 2021
The Junior School of the
Art Institute of Chicago
At the age of 13, in 1948, Hunt enrolled in the Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the year after, he ventured into his first sculpture class. Under the nurturing guidance of the sculptor Nelli Bar and later, Egon Weiner—both visionary Jewish artists who had escaped Nazi Germany—Hunt fully committed to the art of sculpture, transforming his bedroom into a personal sanctuary where creativity flourished, working primarily with clay and plaster.
South Side Community Art Center
Also in his youth, Hunt took art classes at the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC). Hunt exhibited his art for the first time at an SSCAC group exhibition in the fall of 1952 while a senior at Englewood High School. At the time, the SSCAC was the only place in Chicago where minority artists could regularly exhibit their work. Hunt's exhibited works included sculptures in plaster, fired clay, and Sculp-Metal (a malleable material that, upon drying, resembles metal), as well as paintings and drawings. Other notable figures whose works were featured at SSCAC included Elizabeth Catlett, Richmond Barthé, Jacob Lawrence, and the poet Gwendolyn Brooks.
Richard Hunt's senior yearbook photograph, where he lists "Painter-Sculptor."
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