As people navigate public spaces, they pass murals, sculptures, monuments, historical markers and statues, enter buildings, or travel on streets named after people without much thought about who is depicted or honored. But sometimes, the honors do make people stop and notice, elicit emotional connections and responses. People can be moved by the reminder of someone they admire, who they can relate to or who inspires them. Names and representation of individuals, movements, or community history can affirm experiences, capture perspectives, inspire dreams, and add to how societies tell their own stories.
Several years ago, Eve Moran and I (who worked together on the committee for the Ida B. Wells National Monument) were convinced that Richard Hunt had contributed so much to the city, state and world that he deserved to be recognized by the city of Chicago in every way possible, and an honorary street was well-deserved. His story and achievements as a trailblazing and historymaking sculptor will inspire current and future generations. We contacted 43rd Ward Alderman Timmy Knudsen,who advocated for the initiative, and Richard Hunt Place became a reality a few months after Hunt passed.
Hunt broke barriers throughout his life and spent his entire awe-inspiring 70-year art career in Chicago. He served his country in the Army and quietly desegregated a lunch counter in San Antonio, Texas, in 1960. Appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Hunt was the first African-American visual artist to serve on the National Council on the Arts. In 1971, he was the first African American to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York City. Yet, outside of the arts world, most people are likely unfamiliar with his name. In his own quiet, understated way, he had a will of steel while he also worked with steel. Day after day, year after year, decade after decade, he shaped and molded various metals into small and large sculptures in ways that reflected and impacted the world.
A product of Chicago’s South Side, Hunt was born in 1935 in the middle of the Great Depression. Educated in public schools, he trained at the South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). He traveled to Spain, France and England and furthered his training in Italy, before forging a full-time career as an artist. A child of a father who worked as a barber, and mother who was a beautician turned librarian, Hunt branched out into unchartered territory where few African Americans were represented — the modern art world.
Over the course of his career, he earned numerous honorary degrees, taught at several schools and received dozens of awards. He was astonishingly prolific, with over 160 solo exhibitions and work featured in over 100 museums around the world. One of his early works is featured in the Art Institute of Chicago, and he has more commissioned public sculptures than any other artist in the United States. Over 150 of his outdoor sculptures can be seen across the country in 24 states and Washington, D.C. Chicago alone is home to several dozen of his outdoor pieces, from “We Will” downtown on Randolph near Michigan Avenue, to “Building Growing” on the campus of Chicago State University, to “Eagle Columns” in Jonquil Park, to “Flight Forms” at Midway Airport, to the “Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument” at 3729 S. Langley in Bronzeville. Over the course of several years, filmmakers Rana Segal and Laurie Little chronicled the process of Hunt creating the latter work and examined the impact of his legacy in the documentary film Light of Truth: Richard Hunt’s Monument to Ida B. Wells.
In order to further honor Hunt, artist Chris Devins and I initiated the process of creating a large-scale mural of him to be installed in either downtown Chicago or in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Several of Hunt’s sculptures are at the University of Chicago campus, one is in the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, and forthcoming sculptures will be at the Obama Presidential Center and Emmett and Mamie Till-Mobley House Museum in Woodlawn.
Toward the end of Hunt’s life, the Chicago Sculpture Exhibit created a scholarship in his name. In addition, his extensive archive of papers, letters, photos, sketches and other documents was acquired by the Getty Research Institute to curate, preserve and make available for current and future artists and scholars to access and study. Several books have been published to complement his exhibitions, and an extensive monograph titled Richard Hunt was released in 2022.
Uplifting someone’s legacy can be very time-consuming and frequently involves volunteer and uncompensated work. Hunt was aware of that reality, and he was involved in the formation of the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation. He passed away peacefully on December 16, 2023, and the foundation’s Board of Directors is in the process of managing multiple projects to protect and uplift his legacy. This important work needs a multi-pronged, multi-disciplinary approach by individuals, institutions, school administrators and educators, publishers, conference organizers, museums, municipalities and more. In fact, the recently installed “Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt” exhibition at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, in Springfield, Illinois, will run through April 20, 2025, then later re-installed at Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. Through archival preservation, lectures, exhibits, panels, books, articles, films, and other types of public history projects, a person’s work and legacy will become more well known. Those involved need to have the commitment, knowledge, expertise, skills and resources to be most effective. Between the various efforts, he should become a household name.
So, as time goes on, when people see Richard Hunt Place, they should be inspired by the legacy of the man who broke racial barriers in the art world, created consequential pieces that incorporate African-American history and experience, and used materials in innovative ways. In the 1970s, he converted a former substation that powered the city’s elevated rail lines at 1017 W. Lill Avenue into his studio where he worked for over 50 years. So, in that way he was also a businessman and real estate owner in addition to being an artist.
The dedication ceremony for the installation of the Richard Hunt Place signs on Lill Avenue between Sheffield and Racine took place on September 12 -– on what would have been Hunt’s 89th birthday. His daughter Cecilia, friends, colleagues, assistants, mentees, neighbors and others who loved him attended and participated in the simple yet touching ceremony. People spoke about his genius as an artist as well as his kindness as a person. He was a soft-spoken gentleman with a heart of gold and strength of steel who is most known for how he shaped metal to his will. And hopefully as someone who contributed to the city, the state, and the world, his name will become synonymous with all that is great about Chicago.