Hunt’s Tools and Workbench
Steel workbench from Hunt’s studio, with a selection of his tools, including metal benders, grinders, pliers, hammers, Hunt’s face shield, and a stainless steel sculptural fragment that Hunt created.
Hunt designed and crafted some of his own tools so he and his studio assistants could produce unique shapes from large slabs of bronze, steel, and aluminum. Commercially produced tools displayed here are made using a drop-forged method that creates highly durable steel. But after years of heavy use, the tools themselves take on unique shapes, adding special character to the metal they pound into art.
Three of Hunt’s most favored and often used tools
- Ball pein hammer given to Hunt by his father in 1955 when Hunt taught himself direct-metal technique
- Straight pein hammer famously pictured with Hunt in the 1971 MoMA retrospective catalogue
- Cross pein hammer named “Behemouth” due to its heft
Bridging and Branching
1986
Flute and double bass
Duration: 8.5 minutes
Commission: Richard Hunt in celebration of his 50th birthday, for Joseph Guastafeste. 1st performance: Chicago, IL. Studio of Richard Hunt. May, 1986. Lynn Leifer, flute; Joseph Guastafeste, double bass.
In 1986, Hunt commissioned a music score from his friend and renowned composer Thomas Jefferson “T.J.” Anderson. Inspired by Hunt’s work, particularly a maquette for a public sculpture titled Bridging and Branching (1981), Anderson composed a piece for flute and double bass of the same name. From the 1970s into the 1990s, Hunt invited Anderson and other musicians to perform in his studio, sometimes accompanied by dancers. In the photo above, bottom right, T.J. Anderson conducts a rehearsal for a performance at Hunt’s Lill Ave. studio in 1978.
Publisher: Germany, Bote and Bock, 1987
Press button to listen to a segment of Anderson’s Bridging and Branching
Label Audio