Public Art

"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."  

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- Richard Hunt

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Art for the Public

Richard Hunt began securing monumental public sculpture commissions throughout the United States beginning in the late 1960s, continuing for his remaining career. He believed in the impact his art could have on a community and its environment.  

Hunt enjoyed the support of public institutions and governmental entities to complete his public commissions. After he served his six-year term on the National Council on the Arts, the governing board of the National Endowment for the Arts, his relationship with that body continued in the form of patronage. Over the next several years, he received at least three public commissions supported by grants from the NEA, now under the leadership of Nancy Hanks, the NEA's second chair and close friend of Hunt's. Two of the resulting works were clear expressions of Hunt’s reverence for African American history: I Have Been to the Mountain (1977) and Spirit of Freedom (1981).

A Second Career

Hunt considered his public art commissions as a second career, while simultaneously continuing his work on his studio-dedicated sculptures. Spirit Ascending (1960) was Hunt’s first public commission, unveiled on commencement day at Southern University in May of 1960. At the time, the artist considered the sculpture, created at Mill Race Studio from automotive parts he had acquired in the scrapyards surrounding San Antonio, to be his greatest achievement to date. The piece would later be destroyed in Civil Rights protests on the campus.

Hunt would be further inspired to pursue a career in public art upon seeing the crowd-packed unveiling of the Chicago Picasso in 1967, an untitled monumental 50-foot sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago. Hunt was intrigued by Picasso's use of Cor-Ten Steel and would choose this material for his first large-scale commission, Play (1969), which would set the stage for producing large-scale pieces throughout his career.