Vantage Point VI Tom Hunter: Contemporary Narratives

December 23, 2006 - July 8, 2007

The Mint Museum of Art

Tom Hunter is a London-based photographer whose work has earned the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award, and was given the very first solo photography show at the 168-year-old National Gallery. Hunter brings in as subjects the squatters, travelers, and all-around outsiders of his own Hackney community, making a contemporary political statement while giving a nod to the classic Vermeer and Pre-Raphaelite paintings on which many of his works are based. Selections from his Persons Unknown series, Life and Death in Hackney series, and Headlines series will be shown in the Dickson Gallery.

Online Resources

• VantagePoint Series Created by Kate Baillon-Chase for our Contemporary Art Curator Carla Hanzal, this is is wonderful tool that allows you to view Hunter's images along with the classic images that inspired them. Very easy to use, very informative, and very fun! Bravo!

• Artnet has a biography of Hunter and an image gallery of works for sale.

• The BBC Collective has an article, an image gallery, and Tom Hunter's guided video tour of his Living In Hell exhibition.

• The National Gallery provides descriptive comparisons between some of Hunter's photographs and the original Vermeer paintings on which they are based, as well as a video interview on Hunter's working process for his most famous work, Woman Reading A Possession Order.

• The Saatchi Gallery offers an exhibition list and several articles on Hunter.

• Telegraph has an extensive article on Hunter, an "altogether dangerous character," and his exhibition at the National Gallery.

• Artfacts gives a list of public exhibitions, representing galleries, and public collections.

Featured Works

From the Persons Unknown Series

• Girl Writing an Affidavit, 1997
• Woman Reading a Possession Order, 1997

From the Life and Death in Hackney Series

• The Way Home, 1999-2001
• The Vale of Rest, 1999-2001
• The Outlaw, 1999-2001
• The Hackney Man, 1999-2001
• Thoughts of Life and Death, 1999-2001

From the Headlines Series

• Up Before the Beak: Angry Swan Guards Bridge after Crash, 2003
• Bounding Buddhist rushes to the Rescue of Neighbor's Pets, 2005
• Road Rage Thug jailed for Attack on Priest, 2004

Related Sources in the Mint Museum Library

• Borne of Necessity.Greensboro, NC: Weatherspoon Art Museum, 2004. This exhibition at Weatherspoon presenting the work of 10 international artists depicting povery marked Hunter's first exhibited works in the US.
• Forty, Sandra. Vermeer. Cobham: TAJ Books, 2002. This book contains large images of all of Vermeer's paintings, many of which are reworked in Hunter's photography.
• Hunter, Tom. Living in Hell and Other Stories. London: National Gallery, 2005. This is the exhibition catalogue to accompany Hunter's National Gallery show of the same title.
• Hunter, Tom; Michael Bracewell, Paul Shepheard. Tom Hunter. Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2003. Luscious rich reproductions of Hunter's images from his ''Persons Unknown, Traveler, ''and''Life and Death in Hackney''series illustrate essays and an interview with the artist.
• Marsh, Jan. Pre-Raphaelite Women: Images of Femininity. New York: Harmony Books, 1987.
• Pops, Martin. Vermeer, Consciousness and the Chamber of Being. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1984.
• Staley, Allen. The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.
• Wildman, Stephen. Visions of Love and Life: Pre-Raphaelite Art from the Birmingham Collection, England. Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1995.
• Wolf, Bryan Jay. Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

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