Hunt Slonem

Hunt Slonem (born 1951 in Kittery, Maine) is an American neo-expressionist painter, sculptor, and printmaker best known for his repeating motifs of bunnies, butterflies, and tropical birds. He grew up in a Navy family and moved frequently as a child, living in several parts of the U.S., and he credits those early shifts in environment with shaping his fascination with nature. Slonem studied painting and art history at Tulane University and also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, then built his career in New York, developing a signature approach that uses repetition as structure: the subject stays constant while paint handling, rhythm, and color do the work. A defining element of his studio life has been his personal aviary, and his bird paintings in particular are tied to years of living with and observing exotic species up close.

Slonem’s work has been widely exhibited and collected, and his career includes major grants and residencies, including support from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, along with multiple MacDowell Fellowships. His practice has also extended into public and site-specific projects, including the large bird mural installed at the Bryant Park Grill in New York City in 1995. Beyond the canvas, Slonem is known for sculpture and for ambitious restorations of historic properties, treating interiors as full extensions of his visual world, and his homes and restoration projects have been documented in books and design press. Across mediums, the throughline is the same: strong pattern, repeat imagery, and a direct commitment to making work that reads instantly while still rewarding close attention to surface. ×