Bitty Birds

About Hunt Slonem

Hunt Slonem is an American painter sculptor and printmaker. He is best known for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies bunnies and his tropical birds often based on a personal aviary in which he has been keeping from 30 to over 100 live birds of various species. His flair and admiration for far-flung destinations has been a staple of his life since childhood. Slonem was born in 1951 in Kittery Maine and his fathers position as a Navy officer meant the family moved often during Hunts formative years including extended stays in Hawaii California and Connecticut. After graduating with a degree in painting and art history from Tulane University in New Orleans Slonem spent several years in the early 1970s living in Manhattan where early works were exhibited thrusting him into the citys explosive contemporary art scene. He received several prestigious grants including from Montreals Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation the National Endowment for the Arts and the Cultural Counsel Foundations Artist Project.. Slonems works can be found in the permanent collections of more than 300 museums around the world including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City the Whitney the Miro Foundation and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Just some of his numerous books and monographs include: Bunnies (G Editions 2014) Birds (G Editions 2017) and Hunt Slonem: An Art Rich and Strange (Harry N. Abrams 2002).Jacqueline Bograd Weld lives in New York City. She is the author of the novel Rara Avis and the biography Peggy: the Wayward Guggenheim. Currently she is starring in a movie based on her book Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict. She is also the chairman of the Board of Casita Maria New York Citys oldest settlement house for the Latino community.