HUNTOPIA - Catalog - Page 44
HUN T SLONE M
Born in 1951 in Kittery, Maine, Hunt Slonem was the
son of a Naval officer, whose frequent relocations
gave young Hunt a great love of travel. Hunt spent his
formative years in Hawaii, and his studies and
expeditions spirited him from the eastern United States
to Central and South America, the Caribbean,
South Asia, and beyond. Hunt’s experiences with the
customs, religions, flora, and fauna of the world have
led him to use the term “exotica” in reference to his
artwork. His lushly textured paintings are as multifaceted
Hunt’s artworks can be found in the permanent
as his travels, seamlessly interweaving hundreds of
collections of 250 museums around the world, including
bunnies with undulating swarms of butterflies and
the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia;
birds. Hunt’s paintings of deities and muses range from
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan
mystical countesses to stoic American presidents
Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of
communing with gentle-faced saints and Buddhas
American Art, all in New York City; the Miró
softly obscured by wet-on-wet crosshatching.
Foundation in Barcelona, Spain; and the New Orleans
Museum of Art in Louisiana.
Hunt has received international attention for his
restorations of national historic monuments, including
Numerous books and monographs have chronicled
Gilded Age mansions and antebellum plantations, which
Hunt’s art, including Hunt Slonem: An Art Rich and
the artist saves from neglect and fills with installations
Strange (Harry N. Abrams, 2002); Pleasure Palaces:
combining his work with collections of 19th-century
The Art and Homes of Hunt Slonem (powerHouse
antiques. Among his accomplishments are the restorations
Books, 2007); Bunnies (Glitterati Inc., 2014); and
of Cordt’s Mansion and Belle Terre in New York;
Birds (Glitterati Inc., 2017). His studios and homes have
the Madewood, Lakeside, and Albania plantations of
been profiled in such books as When Art Meets Design
Louisiana; and the Scranton Armory and Charles
(Assouline Publishing, 2014) and most recently
Sumner Woolworth mansion in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Gatekeeper: World of Folly (Assouline Publishing, 2018),
The artist currently maintains a studio, which houses
showcasing his reclamation of the Scranton Armory
his 60 beloved birds, in Brooklyn, New York.
and its transition “from arms to art.”
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