The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation and the Public Art Archive™ are pleased to announce a new partnership developed to inventory, document, and provide free online access to a comprehensive catalog of Richard Hunt’s extensive public art commissions throughout the United States. Richard Hunt has more public works in the United States than any sculptor. As the most prolific public sculptor in the country, Hunt’s artistic legacy, seen in works installed across parks, universities, and a multitude of public spaces, is paramount to the history of public art in the U.S. BK Fulton, the Chairman of the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation (a 501c3 non-profit organization to advance awareness of the artist) remarked “The artist’s passing in December 2023, as well as his forthcoming prominent installations at the Obama Presidential Center and The Emmett and Mamie Till-Mobley House Museum, generated overwhelming public interest in Richard Hunt’s life and practice, making the creation of a digital destination to explore his work an important and timely pursuit.”
Richard Hunt:
The Most Prolific Public Sculptor in America
The Partnership
Richard Hunt
As an artist and prominent American sculptor, Richard Hunt considered artistic freedom the most important aspect of his career, “I am interested more than anything else in being a free person. To me, that means that I can make what I want to make, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should make.” At 35, he became the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Hunt held over 160 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the globe. Hunt made the largest contribution to public art in the United States, with more than 160 public sculpture commissions gracing prominent locations in 24 states and Washington, D.C. Hunt was a central figure in Civil Rights-era action and commemorated many African American icons. His body of work explores themes of the African diaspora, African and Western art, mythology, and Hunt’s own ancestry, especially in relation to growth, expansion, freedom, movement, and flight.
Richard Hunt if front of his work, Harlem Hybrid. Photo courtesy (C) 2024 The Richard Hunt Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Smithsonian Archives of American Art: Oral history interview with Richard Howard Hunt, March 3, 1979
- Art Institute of Chicago: “The Sky Is the Limit”: A Conversation between Richard Hunt and Jordan Carter, September 17, 2020
- National Endowment for the Arts: Richard Hunt – Interview, October 22, 2015
- Art & Object: Experience the Weightlessness of Richard Hunt’s Early Works at White Cube, April 8, 2024
- The Brooklyn Rail: Richard Hunt: Early Masterworks, April 2024
- Block Club Chicago: Remembering Richard Hunt, The Legendary Sculptor Who Inspired Artists In Chicago And Beyond, February 29, 2024
Special thanks to content curators and partners, Jon Ott (Richard Hunt’s official biographer and Vice Chair – Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation) and Molly Ott (Director of Communications and Intellectual Property – The Richard Hunt Trust).
If you have any additional information, photographs, or archival material regarding public artworks by Richard Hunt, please contact PAArchive@wearecreativewest.org.
