The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Firebird

Firebird

1975
(1935–2023)
America, 20th century
welded corten steel
Overall: 243.8 cm (96 in.)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Dorsky 1984.191
© Richard Hunt
Location: not on view

Description

Firebird exemplifies Hunt’s intent to "develop the kind of forms nature might create if only heat and steel were available to her." The title Firebird evokes the phoenix, the bird rising out of the ashes, mythologized across civilizations, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Informed by 20th-century abstract art, however, Hunt derives his subject matter not only from myth but from universal experience, the "observation of the form and spatial contents of organic and machine structures, [and] the implications of image and emotion."
  • 1984
    Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Dorsky, New York, NY, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1984-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cole, Mark, Amy Sparks, and Rebecca Michaels. African American Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Reproduced p. 16; mentioned p. 18
  • Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).
    From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-May 9, 2010).
    MOCA Cleveland, OH (1/29/2010 - 5/9/2010): "From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art"
    Year in Review for 1984. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 5, 1985).
    CMA 1985: "Year in Review 1984," CMA Bulletin 72 (April, 1985), p. 202, no. 54.
  • {{cite web|title=Firebird|url=false|author=Richard Hunt|year=1975|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1984.191