Hunt Slonem
Hunt Slonem is Inspired by nature and his 60 pet birds, and is renowned for his distinct neo-expressionist style. Slonem’s works can be found in the permanent collections of 250 museums around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Whitney, the Miro Foundation and the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is best known for his series of bunnies, butterflies and tropical birds, as well as his large-scale sculptures and restorations of forgotten historic homes.
Since his first solo show at the Fischbach Gallery in 1977, Slonem’s work has been showcased internationally hundreds of times, most recently at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. In 2017 and 2018, he will be featured by the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the National Gallery in Bulgaria, and in countless galleries across the United States, Germany and Dubai.
His flair and admiration for far-flung destinations has been a staple of his life since childhood. Slonem was born in 1951 in Kittery, Maine, and his father’s position as a Navy officer meant the family moved often during Hunt’s formative years, including extended stays in Hawaii, California and Connecticut. He would continue to seek out travel opportunities throughout his young-adult years, studying abroad in Nicaragua and Mexico; these eye-opening experiences imbued him with an appreciation for tropical landscapes that would influence his unique style.
After graduating with a degree in painting and art history from Tulane University in New Orleans, Slonem spent several years in the early 1970s living in Manhattan. It wasn’t until Janet Fish offered him her studio for the summer of 1975 that Slonem was able to fully immerse himself in his work. His pieces began getting exhibited around New York, propelling his reputation and thrusting him into the city’s explosive contemporary arts scene. He received several prestigious grants, including from Montreal’s Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Cultural Counsel Foundation’s Artist Project, for which he painted an 80-foot mural of the World Trade Center in the late 1970s. He also received an introduction to the Marlborough Gallery, which would represent him for 18 years.
As Slonem honed his aesthetic, his work began appearing in unique, contextual spaces. By 1995 he finished a massive six-by-86-foot mural of birds, which shoots across the walls of the Bryant Park Grill Restaurant in New York City. His charity work has resulted dozens of partnerships, including a wallpaper of his famous bunnies designed specifically with Lee Jofa for the Ronald McDonald House in Long Island.
Slonem continues to draw great inspiration from history, forging palpable connections to the past through his art. His popular portraits of Abraham Lincoln reframe the historic figure as a pop-art icon, and he is currently working on a nine-foot-tall bronze sculpture of French explorer Robert De La Salle, to be displayed publicly in Louisiana.
Yet Slonem’s most ambitious project has been his mission to save America’s often forgotten historic buildings. Realizing too many of the country’s architectural gems have fallen into disrepair, Slonem has found himself drawn to these national landmarks, inspired by the depth of their age and old-world beauty. Among his accomplishments are the restorations of Cordt’s Mansion in Kingston, New York; the Lakeside and Albania plantations of Louisiana; and the Scranton Armory and Charles Sumner Woolworth’s mansion in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His sixth and latest endeavor is Belle Terre, a storied property in South Kortright, New York.
Numerous books and monographs have chronicled Slonem’s art, including Bunnies (Glitterari Inc., 2014), Birds (Glitterati Inc., 2017) and Hunt Slonem: An Art Rich and Strange (Harry N. Abrams, 2002). His studios and homes have been profiled in such books as When Art Meets Design (Assouline Publishing, 2014) and Pleasure Palaces: The Art and Homes of Hunt Slonem (powerHouse Books, 2007), among others. His latest will be Gatekeeper (Assouline Publishing), showcasing his reclamation of the Scranton Armory, and its transition “from arms to art.”
AWARDS
2015 Russian Academy of Art Medal of Merit
2013 Louisiana State Arts Council Inaugural Lifetime Cultural Achievement Award, Baton Rouge, LA
2013 The Horticultural Society of New York Award of Excellence, NYC
2009 D&D’s Stars of Design, Award in Art, New York, NY
2007 ARTrageous Children’s Expressions Project, Gala Dinner and Art Auction Honoree, NY, NY
2006 Urban Stages Award for Fine Art, New York NY
1991 National Endowment for the Arts
1986 MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, N.H.
1984 MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, N.H.
1983 MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, N.H.
1983 Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, IL
1982 Millay Colony, Austerlitz, NY
1978 Cultural Council Foundation Arts Project, NY
1976 Elizabeth T. Greenshields Foundation Grant for Painting, Montreal, Canada
1968 Rotary International Exchange Student, Managua, Nicaragua
MUSEUMS
Academy of the Arts, Easton, Maryland
American Banaco, New York, NY
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Artbank Program, United States Department of State, Washington D.C.
Bahrain National Museum, Bahrain UAE
Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL.
Bates College Museum of Arts, Olin Art Center, Lewiston, ME
Bergen Museum of Art and Science, Paramus, NJ
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL
Borough Hall, Brooklyn, NY
Bowdoin Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
Brandeis University Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA
Alexander Breast Gallery, Jacksonville University Museum, Jacksonville, FL
Children’s Museum of Naples, Naples, FL
Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Colegio de Architecto, Quito, Ecuador
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME
Columbia University Libraries, new York, NY
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Coral Springs Museum, Coral Springs, FL
Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH
Customs House Museum, Clarksville, TN
Danville Museum, Danville, VA
Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO
Davenport Museum of Art, Davenport, IA
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
Delgado University, New Orleans, LA
Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Detroit, MI
Drury Univ., Springfield, MO
Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY
Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN
Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY
Farnsworth Library & Art Museum, Rockland, ME
Ford’s Theatre, Washington, DC
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
The Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
Florida International University Art Museum, Miami, FL
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain
Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, NY
Guilin Art Museum, Guilin Guang XI P.R. China
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Hovikodden, Norway
Hofstra Museum, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
Housatonic Museum, Bridgeport, CT
Human Systems Technology, Baltimore, MD
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN
Jedco, Jefferson Parrish, LA
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design of Kansas City Art Institute, MO
J. Patrick Lannan Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
Community College Museum of Art, Lake Worth, FL
Le Musée d’Art Haitian, Port au Prince, Haiti
The Von Liebig Art Center, Naples, FL
Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY
Louisiana Arts & Science Museum, Baton Rouge
Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg, VA
Memphis Brooks Museum, Memphis, TN
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, Philippines
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Miami-Dade Community College South Campus, Miami, FL
Miami University, Oxford, OH
Michener Museum of Art, Doylestown, PA
Mills College Art Museum, Mills College, Oakland, CA
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
Miro Foundation, Spain
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss.
Missouri State University, Springfield
University of Missouri, Columbia
Mita Corporation, Fairfield, NJ
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Neuberger Museum, Purchase College/State University of New York, Purchase
Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
New York Historical Society, New York, NY
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Northfield Nt. Hermon School, Mt. Hermon, MA
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA
Ohio Wesleyan Univ. Delaware, OH
Olin Gallery, Roanoke College, Salem, VA
Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
Ozark Community Technical College, Springfield
Port Authority, One World Trade Center (Mural), New York, NY
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Pulitzer Collection, Amsterdam, Holland
Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY
Saint Louis University, Cupples House & McNamee Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Saint Mary’s College, Saint Mary City, MD
Saint Petersburg Museum of Fine Art, St. Petersburg, FL
Samford University, Birmingham, AL
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX
Salt Queen Foundation, Southampton, NY
Sidney Art Gallery and Museum, Port Orchard, WA
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Syracuse University Art Collection, Syracuse, NY
Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, CT
Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL
The Taubman Museum of Art, West Virginia, Roanoke, VA
Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN
Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel
Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii
United States Department of State, Washington, D.C.
University of Arizona, Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
University of Maine at Machias Art Galleries, Machias, ME
University of Michigan, Art Museum Project, Dearborn, MI
University of Oklahoma, Fred Jones Art Center, Norman, OK
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, FL
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Von Leibig Art Center, Naples, FL
Wasmer Gallery, Ursuline College, Pepper Pike, OH
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
Wurth Museum, Kunzelsau, Germany
CORPORATE AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
American Banaco, New York, NY
American Bar Association, Washington, D.C.
ARK Restaurant Corporation
Best Products, Richmond, VA
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY
Children’s Hospital, New Orleans, LA
Citibank, N.A.
Clifford Russell, Inc., New York, NY
Continental Airlines
Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, Newark, NJ
E.I. Dupont De Nemours, New York, NY
Forbes, New York, NY
Forgman Co., Louisville, KY
Goldman Sachs Co., New York, NY
Hamilton Restaurant, Washington, DC
Hilton Hotels, Guam
HRH Headquarters, Washington, DC
Human Systems Technology, Baltimore, MD
IBM Corporation
Intercontinental Hotel, Miami, FL
Jewish Home & Hospital for Aged, New York, NY
L’Ermitage Hotel, Hollywood, CA
Loews New Orleans Hotel, New Orleans, LA
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., New York, NY
Marriott Corporation
Miller, Anderson & Sherrerd, Conshohocken, PA
Mita Corporation, NJ
NY American Telephone & Telegraph
Nieman-Marcus, Dallas, TX
Paine Webber, Inc., Lincoln Harbour, NJ
Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen, Smith & Lancaster, Portland, ME
Primavera Systems, Bala Cynwyd, PA
Princess Cruise Lines
Readers Digest Inc., Pleasantville, NY
Relume Corporation, Troy, Michigan
Roger Ogden Company, New Orleans, LA
Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas
Saint Agatha’s Children’s Home, New York, NY
Sanco General Corporation
Silvestri Corporation, Chicago, IL
Simpson & Thatcher, New York, NY
Sonesta Corporation, Boston, MA
Takashima Corporation, Hawaii
TRW Corporation, Lyndhurst, OH
Tucker Anthony, Inc., New York, NY
UBS Paine Webber, Inc., Lincoln Harbour, NJ
U.M.K.C. John & Maxine Belger Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO
Zale Corporation, Dallas, TX
