How to define John Hunter? The Renaissance scholar resides in Mexico’s Oaxaca and New York City. Gay and African American, he’s also a painter, illustrator, curator, and author.
Meet him and check out his artistic talent on Thursday, May 30, when Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum hosts an Opening Reception for his Family, Identity, & Culture exhibition from 6 pm to 8 pm.
The new retrospective features 50 oil paintings and works on paper that Hunter created over a 20-year period. They reflect everything from his study of modernist artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Cezanne to photographs of his family, lovers, and friends. Other works consist of portraits photographed on a trip to Ghana, Togo, and Benin that he feels reunited him with his African ancestors.
All exhibitions and programs are free at GTM, which is located at Klapper Hall 405 on Queens College’s Flushing campus. (The main entrance is 65-30 Kissena Blvd.)
“Since I am African American, I began to cast my gaze in the direction of fellow people of color,” stated Hunter, who also donated 200 paintings, numerous works, and a personal library of art books and monographs on paper for the benefit of GTM and selected entities of Queens College. “There was another subject, though, that I had hesitated to address—gay life. As a gay married man, I wanted to express my sexual orientation and depict the life that I had lived. This has been a driving impulse that has not only determined what I paint but how it reflects the gay gaze.”
Family, Identity, & Culture will be on display until Aug. 8. GTM is open from 10 am to 4 pm on Mondays through Thursdays and by appointment on Fridays. It’s closed on the weekends and holidays. The show is organized by Louise Weinberg, who is GTM’s co-director, director of exhibitions and collections, and curator. Supporters include Dr. John Hunter, Dr. Harold D. Kooden, Friends of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Kupferberg Center for the Arts, and Queens College.
Images: Godwin-Ternbach Museum