Richard Hunt (1935-2023) was a paragon artist of the 20th century. He was recognized as a singular talent as a young artist, was well-regarded by his contemporaries, and became unparalleled in public art commissions across the United States. Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum presents Hunt’s artistic achievement within the national narrative of the struggle for freedom and the halting delivery of liberty to all people. A history and heritage that motivated Hunt’s 70 years of making art in America.

Hunt was born on Chicago’s South Side and made the city his artistic home, a perch from which he interpreted histories and myths with the materials that built the modern urban metropolis: steel, bronze, and aluminum. Hunt's career spanned the length of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements and into today’s demands for justice. But his attention never turned away from the abstract folds, twists, and soaring shapes that best articulated a purity of artistic expression, a form of freedom he championed and pursued.

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