The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter at the Oakland Museum

Friday, 12 January 2007 00:06

Oakland, CA - The first retrospective of American artist William Hunter, Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970–2005, opens at the Oakland Museum of California January 20, and continues through March 18, 2007. Organized by the Long Beach Museum of Art and curated by Kevin Wallace, the exhibition begins its national tour in Oakland.  Transforming Vision presents about 30 pieces borrowed from public and private collections throughout the US.  The show demonstrates Hunter’s development as a craftsman over three decades as his work progressed from utilitarian objects to exquisite decorative forms in rare and exotic woods.  

Hunter entered the field of contemporary wood sculpture in its formative era, the 1970s, and found his way as a self-taught artist.  He moved to El Portal in 1973, where he built a home and lived close to Yosemite for 15 years.  His early forms exploited various woods’ expressive potential and advanced a new direction for the field: away from traditional woodturning practices toward artistic invention and formal experimentation. 

From 1970 to 1990, Hunter created elegantly proportioned vessels on a lathe.  In the next decade he began to explore more open forms, penetrating the surface of the vessel and connecting its interior and exterior surfaces.  In his recent work (1999–2004) vessels have evolved to abstract interlocking forms.  Transforming Vision includes a piece produced by Hunter with his wife, Marianne Hunter, a prominent jeweler and enamellist.

A native of Long Beach (b. 1947), Hunter now lives in Los Angeles.  He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Collectors of Wood Art, a national organization of artists, collectors, scholars, and critics, in November 2006.

The Oakland Museum of California, Oak & 10^th Streets in Oakland, is one block from the Lake Merritt BART.  Museum is open Wednesday to Saturday, 10 to 5; Sunday, noon to 5; first Friday of the month until 9.  Visit www.museumca.org