White Cube presents Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt’s first European retrospective.
White Cube Bermondsey is pleased to announce the first posthumous retrospective of Richard Hunt (1935–2023), one of the foremost American sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries. His work is also included in ‘Paris Noir’ at Centre Pompidou, Paris (until 30 June 2025), a group exhibition which retraces the presence and influence of Black artists in France from the 1950s to 2000.
Marking the inaugural comprehensive solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Europe, ‘Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective’ comprises almost 40 seminal sculptures and works on paper, made from the 1950s up until his death in 2023.
Born on the South Side of Chicago, where he lived and worked throughout his life, Hunt had a seven-decade-long career with more than 170 solo shows and over 160 large-scale public sculptures worldwide. In 1971, at the age of 35, the artist achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first African American sculptor to have a retrospective at MoMA. In 2022, he was commissioned by Barack Obama to create a work for the Obama Presidential Centre in Chicago, which is scheduled to open in 2026.
Working predominantly in metal, Hunt was profoundly inspired by biological science and the natural world. His hybrid sculptures explore tensions that exist between dualities – the natural and the industrial, the surreal and the abstract, the geometric and the organic. Throughout his practice, the artist commemorated those central to the Civil Rights Movement and America’s greatest heroes, including Martin Luther King Jr., Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Hobart Taylor Jr. and Jesse Owens.
The exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey includes early examples of Hunt’s iconic ‘linear’ welded steel sculptures alongside bronze sculptures from the ‘70s and ‘80s, wall works made in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as his most recent stainless steel sculptures produced in the last years of his life.
Richard Hunt: Metamorphosis – A Retrospective
25 April until 29 June 2025.
White Cube Bermondsey, 144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ
Opening Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00am - 6:00pm, Sunday 12:00 - 6:00pm
Further Information: Richard Hunt | White Cube