The prolific Black sculptor Richard Hunt, who died a year ago this month, came of age during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s. He was born a couple of blocks away from 14-year-old Emmett Till’s childhood home in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, and at 19 years old, he attended Till’s open-casket funeral.
Hunt used his art to express themes of racial trauma, grief and Black liberation. Former President Barack Obama called him one of the “finest artists ever to come out of Chicago.” He said he and former first lady Michelle Obama are “eternally grateful” that one of Hunt’s works will sit outside the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park.
Hunt was also a public art pioneer, with more than 160 commissioned pieces across the country — including several sculptures in downtown Chicago.
Some of Hunt’s abstract metal creations are now on display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. The exhibit will run through April 2025.
WBEZ’s Mawa Iqbal spent a recent afternoon with Jon Ott, a biographer and close friend of Hunt’s. Ott takes us through the exhibit, starting with a piece memorializing Till and ending with a maquette, or rough draft, of a sculpture commemorating Till as a hero.
