Anaconda II, 1980

Hunt Slonem   Famous Artists

Inspired by nature and his 60 pet birds, Hunt Slonem is renowned for his distinct Neo-Expressionist style. He is best known for his series of rabbits, butterflies, and tropical birds, as well as his large-scale sculptures and restorations of forgotten historic houses. Slonem's works can be found in the permanent collections of 250 museums worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Whitney, the Miro Foundation, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Fischbach Gallery in 1977, Slonem's work has been shown hundreds of times worldwide, most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. In 2017 and 2018, he will be featured at the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the National Gallery of Bulgaria, and countless galleries in the United States, Germany, and Dubai.

His flair and admiration for far-flung destinations have been a staple of his life since childhood. Slonem was born in 1951 in Kittery, Maine, and his father's position as a naval officer meant the family moved frequently during Hunt's formative years, including extended stays in Hawaii, California, and Connecticut. He would continue to seek out travel opportunities throughout his younger 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 from Tulane University in New Orleans with a degree in painting and art history, Slonem spent several years in the early 1970s 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 to be exhibited in New York City, boosting his reputation and propelling him into the city's explosive contemporary art scene. He has 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 refined his aesthetic, his work began to appear in unique contextual spaces. In 1995, he completed a massive six-foot-by-86-foot bird mural spanning the walls of the Bryant Park Grill restaurant in New York City. His charitable work has led to dozens of partnerships, including a wallpaper of his famous rabbits designed specifically with Lee Jofa for the Ronald McDonald House on Long Island.

Slonem continues to draw extensive inspiration from history, forging palpable connections to the past through his art. His popular portraits of Abraham Lincoln reframe the historical 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, which will be publicly exhibited in Louisiana.

Yet Slonem's most ambitious project has been his mission to save America's often-forgotten historic buildings. Realizing that too many of the country's architectural gems have fallen into disrepair, Slonem found himself drawn to these national landmarks, inspired by their timeless depth and bygone beauty. His accomplishments include the restorations of Cordt's Mansion in Kingston, New York; Louisiana plantations on the lakefront and in Albania; and the Scranton Armory and Charles Sumner Woolworth's mansion in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His sixth and most recent endeavor is Belle Terre, a legendary estate 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 books such 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 is Gatekeeper: World of Folly (Assouline, 2018), featuring his reclamation of the Scranton Armory and his transition "from guns to art."