painter, illustrator and cartoonist, was born in England and studied at Heatherley’s Art School, London. After gaining experience with a London lithographic firm he came to Sydney in 1879. There he contributed to the Illustrated Sydney News [ ISN ], e.g. 'Balled (Bailed?) Up’ 2 September 1882 (1st prize in ISN art competition, original V*/ BUSH 12/ 1), which Dart says shows the influence of Alfred Clint ; also a double-page spread depicting the embarkation and return of the Australian troops for the Sudan, 11 April 1885 (supplement).
Hunt also drew for the Town and Country Journal , e.g. 'The New Sydney Water Supply” 8 September 1887, p.494, the Sydney Mail and Queensland Punch (1878-94), e.g. possibly Miss Britannia to Queensland 1 October 1883 ill. M. Anderson et al., When Australia was a Woman , Western Australian Museum, 1998, cat. 91. His friend Arthur Collingridge also worked on the Sydney Mail and, with Ernest Blackwell, the two men established the Centennial Magazine in August 1888, which lasted to September 1890. He did lots of straight illustrations for it. In 1892 Hunt and Collingridge held an Art Union of their paintings.
Hunt recollected to William Moore ( Story of Australian Art , vol.2, p.111) that black and white illustration was booming when he arrived in Sydney and most artists worked for a variety of papers and did all sorts of jobs. Living was cheap and one could obtain excellent board at twenty-five shillings a week, he said, while the average price for a full-page drawing was six guineas. He drew for the Bulletin in 1881-89, e.g. 23 July 1881 (including the visit of the royal princes) and The Horrors of Music , a five-part, strip-style cartoon signed 'C.H. Hunt’, published 29 June 1889, 13. His Bulletin drawings were influenced by Clint, Dart states, citing examples of 6 August 1881, p.4, 13 August 1881, p.4, 1 October 1881, p.13, 21 January 1882, p.8, and 29 July 1882, p.8.
Hunt was a foundation member of the Art Society of NSW and exhibited with it for years. In 1885 he showed a watercolour La Fille du Boulanger 1883, said to be typical of the genre subjects he exhibited in the 1880s (along with titles from the theatre and local landscapes) when it was offered at Sotheby’s auction 27-28 August 2001 (lot 236, not ill.). He illustrated Harry Tighe’s A Man of Sympathy for the NSW Bookstall Co. in 1908 (8 ills).
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
