Hunt, Richard Morris
Hunt, Richard Morris,
1828–95, American architect, b. Brattleboro, Vt., studied in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the École des Beaux-Arts; brother of William Morris HuntHunt, William Morris,1824–79, American painter, b. Brattleboro, Vt., studied in Düsseldorf and Paris. He was greatly influenced by the Barbizon school and by J. F. Millet.
..... Click the link for more information. . He was a leading practitioner of 19th-century eclecticism. Hunt worked under T. U. WalterWalter, Thomas Ustick,
1804–87, American architect, b. Philadelphia. In 1819 he entered the office of William Strickland in Philadelphia as a student. In 1830 he began practice, the county prison (1831) at Moyamensing, Philadelphia co., being his first important work.
..... Click the link for more information. on the extensions of the Capitol at Washington, D.C. In New York City he founded the first American studio for training young architects, and he was one of the organizers of the American Institute of Architects, of which he became president in 1888. Most of his work was closely imitative of historic styles. It included the Lenox Library, New York City (later torn down); the first building for the Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge, Mass.; the U.S. naval observatory at Washington, D.C.; the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor; and numerous magnificent residences, such as those of the Vanderbilts in New York City and Newport, R.I., and the Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C. His Tribune Building in New York was one of the first elevator buildings.
Bibliography
See biography by P. R. Baker (1980).