Richard Hunt is widely recognized as one of America's great metal sculptors. An heir to Julio Gonzalez and David Smith, Hunt is an
artist/welder--Chicago's Vulcan. He transforms metal into a life-like substance. His abstractions feature spiky and sleek organic forms (evocative of those in Graham Sutherland's thorn-tree paintings of
the `40s and `50s), which reference African farm implements, jewelry and weaponry. They seem to simultaneously pierce and envelop space
as they twist and writhe through it. Hunt's work is about
regeneration, perseverance and the dynamics of survival.
This stunning exhibition, titled "Growing Forward" and co-curated
by the Snite Museum of Art at Notre Dame, presents 11 large-scale sculptures, 14 maquettes, five corten steel pieces displayed
outdoors in the courtyard, and 13 works on paper, marking Hunt's
first show in New York in many years. He has been too busy working
on monumental outdoor pieces to concentrate on works for gallery shows. Since 1957, when Hunt was 22 and his work first entered
the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, he has received over
100 public commissions. (A good example can be seen at an
intersection on 125th St., not far from the Studio Museum.) He is sure to
speak about some of them when he gives a talk at the museum
on Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m.