Richard Hunt
(1935-2023)
“In some works it is my intention to develop the kind of forms nature might create if only heat and steel were available to her.”
—Richard Hunt, 1966
untitled
1987
welded steel sculpture
26-1/2 x 38-1/2 x 22 inches
unsigned
For more than seven decades Richard Hunt’s status as the foremost African-American abstract sculptor and artist of public sculpture has remained unchallenged. Executed in welded and cast steel, aluminum, copper, and bronze, Hunt’s abstract creations make frequent references to plant, human, and animal forms.
Hunt grew up in the South Side of Chicago and attended art classes at the historic South Side Community Center and the Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As an enrolled student at the Art Institute of Chicago, he taught himself to weld, and the Museum of Modern Art purchased his sculpture, Arachne.
Since then, Hunt’s work has been exhibited extensively. His first public commission was completed in 1959. His most recent public commission, “The Light of Truth,” at the Ida B. Wells National Monument, was unveiled in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Throughout his career, Hunt has created Swing Low for the National Museum of African American History and Culture; I Have Been to the Mountaintop, MLK Memorial, Memphis; Hero Construction, Art Institute of Chicago; Spiral Odyssey, Romare Bearden Park, Charlotte, NC, among others.
Although Hunt’s name is widely recognized and regarded as ubiquitous in the field of sculpture, he also produced a variety of remarkable works on paper, including drawings, screenprints, and lithographs.
His work was recently the subject of a major exhibition titled Richard Hunt: Pressure, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami from December 2, 2025 - March 29, 2026.
His work is represented by White Cube.
Photo: Robert Sengstacke (1943-2017); Portrait of Richard Hunt, 2000; The Collection of the James T. Parker Art Trust.
Selected Exhibitions
Richard Hunt; Milwaukee Art Center, WI. first museum retrospective, 1967
Afro-American Artists Since 1950; Brooklyn College Art Gallery, NY, 1969
The Sculpture of Richard Hunt. Landmark MoMA retrospective; the first for an African American sculptor. Traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1971
Thirty Years of American Printmaking; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY, 1977
The Appropriate Object; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 1989
Richard Hunt: Sixty Years of Sculpture; Chicago Cultural Center, 2014-15
Richard Hunt: Framed and Extended; works on paper in dialogue with sculpture, Studio Museum in Harlem, 2016-17
Richard Hunt: Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze; monumental terrace presentation, Art Institute of Chicago, 2020-21
Richard Hunt: Early Masterworks;most significant New York showing since MoMA 1971, focusing on 1955–1969, White Cube, NY, 2024
Richard Hunt: From Paper to Metal; Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, TX, Prints from his 1965 Tamarind residency with a 1968 sculpture, 2024-25
Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt; Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, IL, Jul 11–Nov 15, 2025.
Richard Hunt: Pressure; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL, 2025-2026
