BIOGRAPHY

HUNT SLONEM

Considered one of the great colorists of his time, Hunt Slonem was born on July 18, 1951 in Kittery, ME. He is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of tropical birds, often based on a personal aviary in which he has been keeping from over 100 live birds of various species.  In the early 1980s, Slonem began working on a new series of so-called 'Rabbit' paintings. The idea for this critically acclaimed series came to him after he had discovered that the year of his birth, 1951, was the year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac calendar. The often repeated 'Rabbit' imagery in this series is an act similar to citing mantras and spiritual meditation. His works are included in many important museum collections all over the world; he is exhibiting regularly at both public and private venues and he has recieved numerous honors and awards. 

After graduating from Tulane University in 1973, Hunt Slonem attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where he was exposed to influential artists from the New York area including Alex Katz, Alice Neel, Richard Estes, Jack Levine, Louise Nevelson and Al Held.  Since 1977, Slonem has had over 250 solo exhibitions at prestigious galleries, Museums both domestic and international have collected his work, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Slonem’s work has also been the subject of many books over the course of his career including: Hunt Slonem: An Art Rich and Strange (Abrams Books, 2002), Pleasure Palaces: The Art and Homes of Hunt Slonem (PowerHouse Books, 2007) and The Worlds of Hunt Slonem (Vendome Press, 2011).