Artist Birthday: Richard Hunt

Born in Chicago, Richard Hunt became what is considered to have been the foremost abstract African American sculptor of the 20th century.

Artist Birthday for 12 September: Richard Hunt (1935-2023 US)

Richard Hunt, Arachne, 1956, welded scrap steel, 76 x 62.2 x 71.7 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York, © 2025 Artist or Estate of Artist (MOMA-S1167)

Throughout his career, Hunt produced works that were evocative of the human figure, plants, and animals, and sometimes all three combined. Starting in the mid-1950s, he produced a number of figurative works on themes from ancient Greek mythology. The artist called these works "antique studies." Arachne is a mortal woman who belittled the Greek goddess Athena's prowess as a weaver and foolishly challenged her to a contest. Athena eventually turned her into a spider so she could always remember her sin by eternally spinning. Hunt depicts the subject at the moment Arachne begins her transformation from Athena's spell, her arms disappearing and her fingers becoming multiple legs. Arachne is depicted in mid-motion, as if fleeing the goddess, definitely reflecting the influence of Futurist Umberto Boccioni's (1882-1916) study of movement Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. The piece also reflects the influence of Gonzalez's welded sculptures, generally the Surrealist idea of making art from found objects, which included a car muffler and two lampshades. It is part of a major theme that he occasionally explored -- metamorphosis.

Background

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s galvanized Black artists to push for a revival in the exhibition and study of African American art that had stagnated since the Harlem Renaissance (ca. 1918-1930s). This led to the formation of the Spiral Group in New York in 1963. Artists active during the Harlem Renaissance as well as younger artists joined and the styles ranged from Abstract Expressionism to Social Realism. As during the Harlem Renaissance, some of the artists felt that the group’s art should be relevant to the African American community, with scenes of everyday life and elements of their African ancestry. Others believed that style was a means to an end, and that any style, regardless of its “Blackness” could represent modern African American art as a significant contribution to contemporary American art.

A series of shows in the 1970s and 1980s brought further attention to African American artists like never before. By the 2000s, the presence of African Americans in the American art world has progressed to strong representation in almost every gallery and museum in the country, including some museums dedicated to black artists, and in many abroad.

Richard Hunt's parents nurtured his early interest in being an artist. He studied at the School of the Art Institute starting at the age of 13 where he discovered a passion for sculpture. He further studied sculpture at the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. Hunt's epiphany was viewing the work of Cubist sculptor Julio Gonzalez (1876-1942) who was a pioneer in welded steel sculpture. Hunt taught himself welding and by 1956 won his first prize (the Art Institute's "Palmer Prize") for a welded piece. Other influences include the Russian Constructivists who emphasized minimalist, pure abstraction.

Unlike many of the artists of the Harlem and Chicago Renaissance, and many of his contemporaries in the 1950s, Hunt stood out by choosing abstraction, rather than depictions of African American history and everyday life. Some of the expressive lines of his pieces may reflect the influence of the gestural nature of some Abstract Expressionist art, while his subjects were always personal, and usually narrative.

Many of his welded forms of the late 1950s and 1960s were vaguely suggestive of figures or animals. They were composed of salvaged steel in a variety of shapes and sizes. In the 1970s, Hunt moved to more solid forms, casting metal in addition to welding it.