Robert Hunt was elected a member of The Society of Portrait Sculptors in Jul 2005.
Robert Hunt has had a fascination with visual rather than written forms of expression for as long as he can remember. An initial interest in drawing and painting has developed into a total preoccupation with three dimensional, figurative sculpture.
The majority of his work is portraiture. When he joined sculpture classes for the first time in the mid 1980s he was immediately drawn to the human face and figure. Although he has occasionally experimented with the abstract (which brings with it a whole new freedom of imaginative expression) he has always returned to the figurative as the discipline that most inspires him and provides the highest degree of satisfaction.
Trying to reproduce the warmth and flexibility of a living form, using materials as rigid as bronze, stone or plaster is undoubtedly a challenge. It is more than simply trying to reproduce the surface image that meets the eye. He is always trying to understand and reveal that ?something more? in every portrait sculpture that he undertakes. In the rigid surface of the finished piece must be, somehow, all the structure of bone and movement of muscle that makes up the human form; not just one momentary expression captured, but an illusion of all expressions that face is capable of; and more still – even the movement of an eyebrow, the sound of the voice, the shrug of a shoulder.
The sculptor, as a unique individual, meets the sitter as another such, and in that meeting hopes to see and express in a three-dimensional block of seemingly dead matter, the mystery of recognition, unique to this encounter.
So for Robert the ability to produce a likeness starts with a need to look in great detail at an individual: and not just at the surface. The French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle said to his students ?do not work on the surface, habituate yourselves to reproduce the interior. Sculpture is the art of the interior.?.
Sculptures by robert hunt
Credentials
Qualifications
Initial careers in the Army and the City precluded any early formal art training.
Began studying sculpture in part time courses in the early 1980s.
Life class tuition, St Thomas` Art Centre, Winchester and Basingstoke College of Technology (Tutor Les Johnson) 1987-1995
Portrait sculpture course, West Dean College, West Sussex 1995
Stone carving and tuition in portraiture, Centro D`Arte, Verrochio, Tuscany 1997
Stone carving course, Portland Sculpture Trust, Dorset 1999
Technical sculpture training, The Sculpture Academy, London 2001
Has attended four Master Classes with The Society of Portrait Sculptors in 2005-9
One to one personal tuition with Nigel Boonham, FRBS, President, The Society of Portrait Sculptors 2005-9.,Initial careers in the Army and the City precluded any early formal art training.
Began studying sculpture in part time courses in the early 1980s.
Life class tuition, St Thomas` Art Centre, Winchester and Basingstoke College of Technology (Tutor Les Johnson) 1987-1995
Portrait sculpture course, West Dean College, West Sussex 1995
Stone carving and tuition in portraiture, Centro D`Arte, Verrochio, Tuscany 1997
Stone carving course, Portland Sculpture Trust, Dorset 1999
Technical sculpture training, The Sculpture Academy, London 2001
Has attended four Master Classes with The Society of Portrait Sculptors in 2005-9
One to one personal tuition with Nigel Boonham, FRBS, President, The Society of Portrait Sculptors 2005-9.Exhibitions
yes
Awards
Winner in 2004 of the Society of Portrait Sculptors - Olin-Stones Award for best relief sculpture.
Awarded first prize 2004 - judged by Philip Jackson FRBS, FRSA.
After an early career in the Army, Robert moved to a job in the City in 1983 where he was to spend the next 18 years working with an international bank. Throughout this period he became increasingly absorbed by sculpture, finding the necessary time during evenings and weekends to attend life classes and to practice in his studio. He quickly showed a particular sensitivity for portraiture and what began as a hobby soon became a serious interest and led to his first portrait commissions in the late 1980s. The demand for his skills as a portrait sculptor, much of it generated by word of mouth, steadily increased and as a result he decided to leave the City at the end of 2000 to take up sculpture full time.
In addition to undertaking portraits to commission his work includes other figurative sculpture which he produces as edition pieces and which are based on both human and animal form. While much of his work is executed ?in the round? he also enjoys the discipline of relief sculpture and received the Olin-Stones Award for best relief sculpture at the Society of Portrait Sculptors annual exhibition at The Gallery, Cork Street in May 2004.
Apart from a number of commissions undertaken in the United Kingdom, his work is included in private collections in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Ireland.
He was elected a member of The Society of Portrait Sculptors in 2005 and appointed Honorary Secretary in November 2007.
Apart from The Society of Portrait Sculptors he holds memberships with Armed Forces Art Society, Hampshire Sculpture Trust and the Surrey Sculpture Society.
He works from his studio in Winchester, Hampshire and is married to artist, Belinda Hunt.
