MoMA Retrospective
"Not yet forty years of age, Richard Hunt ranks as one of America's foremost living sculptors."
- William S. Lieberman, Curator, Museum of Modern Art,
The Sculpture of Richard Hunt, MoMA catalogue, 1971
First Solo Exhibition in New York
In 1971, at the remarkable age of just 35, Hunt achieved a significant milestone in the art world, becoming one of the youngest artists and the very first African American sculptor to receive a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (March 25–July 9, 1971).
The showcase, The Sculpture of Richard Hunt, was an impressive display, featuring 55 of Hunt's sculptures, including notable pieces such as Linear Spatial Theme, Number 1 (1962) and The Chase (1965), along with eight drawings and 12 prints. NBC and BBC television crews covered the opening.
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Exhibition photos from The Sculpture of Richard Hunt at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 1971.
"Mr. Hunt’s sculptural vocabulary is essentially private. I do not mean by this that it is obscure in reference or difficult to fathom, but only that it is based on a very personal iconography in which a certain violence of feeling is sublimated - and seem to be sublimated - in a very taught and elegant sculptural calligraphy."
- Hilton Kramer, “From ‘Open-Form’ to the Monolithic Cube,”
The New York Times, April 4, 1971.
Solo Retrospective at Art Institute of Chicago
The Sculpture of Richard Hunt traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago and was exhibited from August 21 to October 4, 1971. The exhibition was sponsored in Chicago by Johnson Publishing Company, publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines.
This exhibition provided a comprehensive journey through the evolution of Hunt's artistic endeavors over the previous 15 years. It traced his creative path from his early works, which employed found objects to challenge conventional notions of art, to his innovative linear "drawings-in-space," culminating in the bold, dense, and monolithic forms characteristic of his later creations in the late 1960s.
Hunt's retrospective at MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago marked a groundbreaking moment, representing the most extensive showcase the museums had ever dedicated to an African American artist up to that point.
Exhibition photos from The Sculpture of Richard Hunt at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1971.