Richard Hunt, a prolific sculptor whose towering metalwork became a mainstay of American public art, and whose 70-year career drew the attention of presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack Obama, died on Saturday at his home in Chicago. He was 88.
Mr. Hunt, a son of Chicago's South Side, was 19 years old in 1955 when he attended the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till, a young Black Chicagoan who grew up near Mr. Hunt and who was tortured and killed while visiting Mississippi. That searing experience helped shape the artist's career and nudged him to experiment with welding and with forging discarded materials into art.
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