Metamorphosis

The first London retrospective of work by Richard Hunt (1935–2023), one of the foremost American sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries, opens at White Cube Bermondsey in April 2025.

Over a seven decade-long career, Hunt staged more than 150 solo shows and completed over 160 large-scale public sculpture commissions worldwide. In 1971, at the age of 35, he achieved a historic milestone as the first African American sculptor to receive a retrospective at New York’s MoMA.

Working predominantly in metal, Hunt was profoundly inspired by biological science and the natural world. His hybrid sculptures are characterised by dualities, that of the natural and the industrial, the surreal and the abstract, the geometric and the organic.

Throughout his career, the late artist paid tribute to some of America’s greatest heroes in his work, including Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Owens and Hobart Taylor Jr. In 2022, he was commissioned by Barack Obama to create a work for the Obama Presidential Centre, located in the artist’s hometown of Chicago.