Hunt Slonem

Hunt Slonem (born July 18, 1951) is an artist who combines abstract expressionism and representational imagery. He is best known for his paintings of tropical birds, based on a personal aviary in which he keeps about 100 live birds of various species. His fascination with exotica can be traced to his experiences as a child in Hawaii and as a foreign exchange student in Managua, Nicaragua.

Since 1977, Hunt Slonem has had more than 350 exhibitions at prestigious galleries and museums internationally. In 2010 he held shows in the Coral Springs Museum, Coral Springs, Fl; Museo de Arte El Salvador, San Salvador, Columbia; Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, LA; Paul & Lulu Hilliard Museum, Lafayette, LA; McMullen Museum, Boston, MA; National Museum of Art, Sofia, Bulgaria; and more. Internationally, more than 100 museums include his work in their collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He has been commissioned to paint large-scale murals for the Bryant Park Grill, New York City and the former World Trade Center, NYC.

Hunt Slonem received the prestigious “Stars of Design” award in art October 2009 in New York City, the Greenshields Foundation award in 1976, the National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1991, and numerous other honors. He studied painting at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN; and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tulane University of Louisiana.

Hunt Slonem will be the subject of a monograph in 2011 from Vendome Publishers with text by Dominique Nahas. The 30-year survey features more than 600 vibrant illustrations. “Pleasure Palaces: The Art & Homes of Hunt Slonem” with text by Vincent Katz, was published by PowerHouse Books in 2007. In 2002 Henry R. Abrams published “Hunt Slonem, An Art Rich & Strange” which features text by Donald Kuspit. Slonem divides his time between Louisiana where he owns two plantation homes on the historic register, Albania in St. Mary’s Parish and Lakeside in Pointe Coupee; and the Cordt Mansion in Hudson, New York, as well as several lofts in New York City.