Gerry Hunt’s career parallels the development of contemporary art itself. Born in 1927, his progress as an artist reflects the major trends in art of the latter half of the twentieth century. This interest in the “Languages” of 20th Century painting can be seen clearly in his 1980’s publication, Some Principles and Practice of Twelve Modern Art Styles (Coracle Press, London) Despite the diverse nature of Hunt’s work, there is an overriding concern as to the balance between art and craft, between theoretical knowledge and practical execution. Taught by two founding members of the Euston Road School, Hunt’s training as an artist is very much rooted in the British tradition.

Hunt’s mature work is powerful and yet subtle; there are no jarring forms, no forced originality. The resulting work is engaging and poetic, the height of minimalist abstract expression.

Gerry Hunt studied at Camberwell School of Art and The Slade School of Fine Art. His teachers were the founders of the Euston Road School, a British Modern realist group formed in 1938 whose most famous member was William Coldstream then a Slade professor. Hunt later taught for many years at Camberwell and the Byam Shaw School of Art.

In 2003 he wrote:
In recent years I have started each painting with purely formal, open-ended, classical Abstract Expressionist intentions, until some sort of figurative scenario presents itself to me. Whereupon, with as little sacrifice as possible of the pure painting so far achieved, I encourage a believable real scene to emerge. When I drew with charcoal on paper, which is how I first became aware of this possibility in my work, it usually resulted in figures and/or animals, caught in some rather strange and sometimes funny ‘in between’ situations. Recently, with slowly increasing success, I have begun to achieve this in my paintings. In order to approach the technical simplicity of using just a stick of charcoal, as I do when I draw on paper, while using oil paint on canvas, I have restricted my palette to the three primary colours and white.