Curating the Vision of Sculptor Richard Hunt

At Krasl Art Center, Tami Fauver is welding a sustaining bond to Hunt’s visual imagination.

And You, Seas by Richard Hunt. Photograph by Joshua Nowicki for Krasl Art Center.

By Jan Wiezorek

Think of a gateway to flight. Think of being uplifted, transformed. Now, you’re thinking like sculptor Richard Hunt. He was a “beloved member” of the arts community, and his passing at age 88 in 2023 was deeply felt in Benton Harbor—where he had a satellite studio—and at Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, where Executive Director and Chief Curator Tami Fauver first introduced herself to him in 2010, saying she wanted to get to know him. “We began talking about exhibitions and projects—cultivating what we might do at the Krasl to focus on him and his work,” Fauver recalls.

A bond formed between them. That resulted in the 2015 Krasl exhibition The Public Life of Richard Hunt: 21st Century Projects. It highlighted the then 80-year-old sculptor’s public-art commissions, including those in Muskegon and at the University of Iowa, with models, photographs of the sites, and renderings displayed in the exhibition.

The Hands of the Artist. Richard Hunt, 2021 for Krasl Art Center.

Then, in 2023, Krasl was gifted the 20,000-sq.-ft. Richard Hunt Studio Center at 258 Territorial Road in Benton Harbor. “The gift of this building is the result of a longstanding relationship between the artist and art center,” Fauver says. Today, Fauver is working with her board and community stakeholders to develop new uses for the studio, which is not yet fully open to the public. Plans call for welding and other art classes and events at the studio for the community.

Fauver explains that a welding program there could involve the arts and trades in collaboration. “We think this is a great fit for the community and for the legacy of Richard,” she says. Though a set schedule of classes at the studio is a future vision—perhaps a few years from fruition—Fauver expects to use the studio in the coming year for drop-in artmaking events for families and for fundraising receptions. The art center is working to incorporate plans for the studio within Krasl’s overall master planning.

Richard Hunt Studio Center

Inside the studio now are three works by Hunt—a fabrication model of the Krasl Art Center’s gateway sculpture Rising Crossing Tides, a model of the sculpture And You, Seas, and a sculpture titled Standard. On the windows are photos of Hunt taken by Chicago photographer Sandro, who Fauver hopes to feature in a future Krasl exhibition.

Nationally and internationally known, Hunt had more public-art commissions than any other American sculptor. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2009. The Getty in Los Angeles holds his archive, and a show of his work opened at White Cube in London in April 2025.

“Often, Hunt’s forms are filled with a column of fluid, upright movement and a ribbon-like top,” Fauver says, such as at the fifty-foot. outdoor sculpture And You, Seas at the pier at Silver Beach County Park in St. Joseph. “It’s very bird-like; he was influenced by nature and poetry.”

Funding will be needed to sustain both Hunt’s studio and Krasl Art Center in the long term. Fauver believes individuals, foundations, and corporate support will be critical. She remains optimistic despite recent cuts in federal arts funding. It is her belief that the art center's mission to "inspire meaningful change and strengthen community through the visual arts" is critical and enduring.

Richard Hunt finalizing And You, Seas in 2002.

Before sculptor Hunt opened his Benton Harbor studio in 1995, print dealer John Wilson invited him to the area that was being developed as part of the Community Renewal Through the Arts program started by Cornerstone Alliance to drive economic growth. Also, Hunt used the studio not only to work but also to advance arts in the city, for the African American community, and for the next generation of artists. His “freedom of mind, thought, and imagination”—to quote his own career vision—included instilling those attributes in individuals who visited his studio. One such sculptor Hunt mentored in the 1990s is Isaac Duncan III. Krasl has developed a sculpture exhibition by Duncan, who now lives in Chattanooga, that is slated for 2026 and will feature artworks by Duncan and Hunt, as well as other key sculptors of the Black diaspora.

Fauver looks back at her time working with Hunt at Krasl with fondness. “I knew him very well,” she says. “He was very encouraging to individuals and their creative pursuits—incredibly gracious . . . to those interested in the arts.” His curiosity about new methods in sculpture brought him to visit university art departments. Fauver explains that Hunt was a “die-hard, direct-metal artist” who loved learning about 3-D printing and the evolving definition of sculpture, which today includes such concepts and materials as installations, performance, social-impact projects, sound, light, and fiber. “It’s no longer a carved, cast, or modeled three-dimensional object.”

Richard Hunt and daughter Ceclia Hunt at the sculpture reveal for Rising Crossing Tides in 2017

Fauver earned her Master of Arts Degree in Art History and Museum Studies from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. She has been curating at Krasl since 2008, working with all the logistics of exhibitions. “I tease that it’s specialized event planning,” she says, and giggles.

Earlier in Fauver’s career, her mother didn’t understand the curatorial role. “For many years I tried to explain to my mother what I was doing for a living. She would say to me, ‘I just don't get it,’ until she [and Fauver’s father] visited Krasl when we were installing an exhibit. The semi was at the loading dock with crates of artwork, and inside the galleries, we were painting walls and setting lights. We had a team of people working.” Then, her mother finally understood that “a lot of work goes into this profession.”