HR0799 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0799 LRB097 20563 GRL 66165 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are pleased to congratulate Richard Howard Hunt for his many achievements as a sculptor; and

WHEREAS, Richard Hunt was born on September 12, 1935, in Chicago; he attended Chicago Public Schools before attending the University of Illinois in Chicago; in 1957, he earned his bachelor's degree in education from the University of Chicago; from 1957 to 1958, he traveled and studied in England, France, Spain, and Italy under the James Nelson Raymond Foreign Travel Fellowship; and

WHEREAS, Richard Hunt served his country as a member of the United States Army from 1958 to 1960; and

WHEREAS, Richard Hunt is well known throughout the world for his abstract sculpture; he began sculpting in his teens, modeling in clay and carving in his bedroom at home; he later created a studio in the basement of his father's barbershop; as a teen, he was intrigued by metalwork at the African collection of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, where his mother, a librarian, frequently took him, while his work in a zoological lab at the University of Chicago contributed to his fascination with animal and insect forms; and

WHEREAS, From 1953 to 1957, Richard Hunt attended the Art Institute of Chicago, where he focused on sculpture, especially welding, and studied lithography; while at the institute, he was exposed to the work of the sculptors Julio Gonzales and David Smith, to whom he has attributed inspiration to use direct-metal techniques to transform steel, aluminum, copper, and bronze into sculpture; using a welding torch as his mallet and chisel, he transformed found objects, garbage, and auto parts found on industrial sites into plant-like and insect-like forms; in 1959, he won his first award at an annual show for artists in the Chicago area; and

WHEREAS, By 1960, Richard Hunt had become a major open-form, direct-metal sculptor in the art world; at this time, he began to combine closed with open forms, calling them "hybrid figures"; in the 1970s, he added inventive Baroque flourishes to his forms so that solids seemed both to penetrate voids and to be penetrated by them; he later began to gradually move away from his early calligraphic work, instead turning to closed contours and solid shapes; and

WHEREAS, Richard Hunt has produced more than 55 public site sculptures, including a candelabra for St. Matthew's Methodist Church in Chicago in 1970; he has also created many color lithographs and drawings; and

WHEREAS, In 1971, Richard Hunt became the first African-American to be accorded a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art; throughout the years, he has received Guggenheim, Ford, and Tamarind Fellowships, awards from the Art Institute of Chicago, and Logan, Palmer, and Compana prizes; he also holds numerous honorary degrees from prestigious universities and has served on the National Council of the Arts and as a commissioner of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art; and

WHEREAS, Richard Hunt serves as a model of hard work, integrity, and dedication for the people of the State of Illinois; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we congratulate Richard Howard Hunt for his many achievements as an artist and thank him for serving as an exemplar in the African-American community and as a source of inspiration during Black History Month; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Richard Hunt as a symbol of our esteem and respect.