White Cube has announced global representation of Richard Hunt (b.1935, Chicago, Illinois), one of the leading American sculptors of the 20th century. The artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery will take place in spring 2024 at White Cube New York.
It was important to me to partner with a gallery with global reach because I always meant for my art to express the concerns of people everywhere, especially the universal desire for freedom.
Richard Hunt
Over a seven-decade-long career, Hunt has staged over 150 solo shows, with more than 160 large-scale public sculpture commissions worldwide. In 1971, at the age of 35, he achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first African-American sculptor to have a retrospective at MoMA, New York.
With a profound fascination for biological science and the natural world, working predominantly in metal, Hunt’s hybrid sculptures are characterised by dualities, that of the natural and the industrial, the surreal and the abstract, the geometric and the organic.
Hunt has paid tribute to some of America’s greatest heroes in his work, including Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Owens and Hobart Taylor Jr. In 2022, he was commissioned by Barack Obama to create work for the Obama Presidential Centre, located in the artist’s hometown of Chicago. A new work, titled Book Bird will grace the Library Reading Garden outside the new Chicago Public Library branch on the campus.
Further notable projects include Swing Low (2016) a welded bronze sculpture commissioned for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and The Light of Truth (2021), a monument dedicated to the journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells on the South Side of Chicago.
Richard has been a giant hiding in plain sight for decades and it is a privilege to have the opportunity to work with him at White Cube. He has more public monuments in the U.S. than any other sculptor, and his ability to thread the history of twentieth-century sculpture, with his own deeply personal experience as a Black man is nothing short of profound. His sculptures often appear to soar, and the metaphor speaks to his core belief as to what art means to him, an avenue and opportunity for freedom.
Sukanya Rajaratnam, Global Director of Strategic Market Initiatives,
White Cube will present a sculpture by the artist, titled Years of Pilgrimage (1999), at the 2023 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. This will be followed by a solo exhibition at White Cube’s recently opened New York gallery at 1002 Madison Avenue.
About the artist
Richard Hunt was born in 1935 in Chicago, Illinois, where he continues to live and work. He has exhibited extensively, including recent solo exhibitions at KANEKO, Omaha, Nebraska (2022); Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California (2022); The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (2020–21); Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens (2018); Koehnline Museum of Art, Oakton College, Illinois (2018); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois (2014–15); Galesburg Civic Art Center, Galesburg, Illinois (2013); Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso, Indiana (2012); Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, Virginia (2011); and David Findlay Jr Gallery, New York (2011).
Hunt’s work is held in over 100 public collections including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; MFA Houston, Texas; MoMA, New York; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
The artist is the recipient of numerous awards, among which are the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1962–63); the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center (2009); the Fifth Star Award from the City of Chicago (2014); and the Legends and Legacy Award from the Art Institute of Chicago (2022).
