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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives are pleased to congratulate Richard Howard
4Hunt for his many achievements as a sculptor; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Richard Hunt was born on September 12, 1935, in
6Chicago; he attended Chicago Public Schools before attending
7the University of Illinois in Chicago; in 1953, he attended the
8University of Chicago; in 1957, he earned his bachelor's degree
9in art education from the School of the Art Institute of
10Chicago; from 1957 to 1958, he traveled and studied in England,
11France, Spain, and Italy under the Art Institute of Chicago's
12James Nelson Raymond Foreign Travel Fellowship; and
 
13    WHEREAS, Richard Hunt served his country as a member of the
14United States Army from 1958 to 1960; and
 
15    WHEREAS, Richard Hunt is well known throughout the world
16for his abstract sculpture; he began sculpting in his teens,
17modeling in clay and carving in his bedroom at home; he later
18created a studio in the basement of his father's barbershop; as
19a teen, he was intrigued by metalwork at the African collection
20of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, where his mother,
21a librarian, frequently took him; his work in a zoological lab
22at the University of Chicago during high school and college

 

 

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1contributed to his fascination with animal and insect forms;
2and
 
3    WHEREAS, From 1953 to 1957, Richard Hunt attended the Art
4Institute of Chicago, where he focused on sculpture, especially
5welding, and studied lithography; while at the Institute, he
6was exposed to the work of the sculptors Julio Gonzales and
7David Smith, to whom he has attributed inspiration to use
8direct-metal techniques to transform steel, aluminum, copper,
9and bronze into sculpture; using a welding torch as his mallet
10and chisel, he transformed found objects, scrap metal, and auto
11parts found on industrial sites into plant-like and insect-like
12forms; in 1959, he won his first award at an annual show for
13artists at the Chicago Art Institute; and
 
14    WHEREAS, By 1960, Richard Hunt had become a major
15open-form, direct-metal sculptor in the art world; at this
16time, he began to combine closed with open forms, calling them
17"hybrid figures"; in the 1970s, he added inventive Baroque
18flourishes to his forms so that solids seemed both to penetrate
19voids and to be penetrated by them; he later began to gradually
20move away from his early calligraphic work, instead turning to
21closed contours and solid shapes; and
 
22    WHEREAS, Richard Hunt has produced more than 130 public
23site specific sculptures, including a cross and candelabra for

 

 

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1St. Matthew's Methodist Church in Chicago in 1970, Fight Forms
2for Midway Airport, and freeform for the State of Illinois
3Office Building (now James R. Thompson Center) in Chicago; he
4has created many other sculptures, color lithographs, and
5drawings, including memorials to Martin Luther King, Jr. and
6the Freedmens Bureau; he has also recently been chosen to
7create a commemorative for Ida B. Wells in Bronzeville in
8Chicago; and
 
9    WHEREAS, In 1971, Richard Hunt became the first
10African-American sculptor to be accorded a retrospective at the
11Museum of Modern Art in New York; throughout the years, he has
12received Guggenheim, Ford, and Tamarind Fellowships, and
13awards from the Art Institute of Chicago, including the Logan,
14Palmer, and Compana prizes; he holds numerous honorary degrees
15from prestigious universities and has been elected to
16membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the
17National Academy of Design; he has also served on the National
18Council of the Arts, as a commissioner of the Smithsonian
19Institution's National Museum of American Art, and as a juror
20for Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.;
21and
 
22    WHEREAS, In 2008, Richard Hunt became the inspiration for
23the "Richard Hunt Fine Arts Room" within the newly-built campus
24of Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory High School in

 

 

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1order to give young people the opportunity to pursue the fine
2arts and motivate them through his extraordinary example of
3creativity and his artistic vision; and
 
4    WHEREAS, Richard Hunt serves as a model of hard work,
5integrity, and dedication for the people of the State of
6Illinois; therefore, be it
 
7    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
8NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
9we congratulate Richard Howard Hunt for his many achievements
10as an artist and thank him for serving as an exemplar in the
11African-American community and as a source of inspiration
12during Black History Month; and be it further
 
13    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
14presented to Richard Hunt as a symbol of our esteem and
15respect.