TitleOffset
Artist
Richard Hunt
(American, 1935 - 2023)
Date2002
MediumStainless steel
DimensionsOverall: 38 × 29 × 26 3/4 in.
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, December 18, 2002
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number2002.19
Label TextThrough his welded, cast, and extruded metal sculpture Richard Hunt has explored the possibilities of three-dimensional abstraction for decades. Born in Chicago during the Depression, Hunt enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1953. It was during this same year that he was deeply affected by the direct metal welded constructions of Spanish sculptor Julio González, whose work he saw in an exhibition Sculpture of the Twentieth Century. Soon thereafter Hunt taught himself to weld, and his prodigious talent was confirmed when the Museum of Modern Art purchased Hunt's Arachne in 1957 for its permanent collection. Additional early influences on his work include the linear forms of Surrealist painter, Roberto Matta, with whom Hunt briefly studied, the welded work of David Smith, the assemblage of Picasso, and the similarly lyrical direct metal work of Hunt's fellow Chicago sculptor, Joseph Goto, among others. The artist's sculpture has never been derivative, however, and throughout the 1950s Hunt continued to utilize the potential expressiveness of found metal objects and industrial detritus, placing him at the forefront of the mid-century sculptural movement of the "junk" aesthetic.Following his graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1957, Hunt traveled to Europe on a scholarship and in 1958 was drafted into the army, during which time he continued to work. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1958 at the Allen Gallery and has continued to exhibit regularly. While Hunt has always been inspired by and referred to nature in his sculpture, in the 1960s he moved away from his earlier calligraphic and corporeal efforts and toward a more monolithic approach. Hunt's first museum retrospective exhibition was at the Milwaukee Art Museum in 1967, followed four years later by a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York that also traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago. Throughout the following two decades he increased the scale of his work and won dozens of public commissions.
"Offset" is part of a group of sculptures that for Hunt signaled a return to a more lyrical approach to sculpture for Hunt. Hybridism or hybridity are terms that have long been used to describe the artist's work, and "Offset" is a prime example of how Hunt combines his interest in ancient forms with European and American modernism, African metalwork, and African-American history. While completely abstract, "Offset" dances with fluid-like grace and appears almost as if it may have sprung from some primordial source. The enduring relevance of his artist statement from 1966 is a testament to his conviction: "In some works it is my intention to develop the kind of forms nature might create if only heat and steel were available to her."
