Museum report·Basel
Kunstmuseum Basel acquires Richard Hunt's 'Opposed Forms'
Announced 15 September 2026: Kunstmuseum Basel has acquired 'Opposed Forms' (1965), the landmark welded chromed-steel sculpture by Richard Hunt, for its Abstract Expressionism collection; it is on view in the 'Art after 1950' gallery.

Made from salvaged chromed-steel automobile bumpers and steel table legs, the work synthesizes Hunt's early linear-spatial 'drawing in space' with volumetric mass into a fluid, muscular form. Acquired with funds from the Arnold Rüdlinger-Fonds, it joins the museum's holdings of postwar American abstraction alongside works by Lee Bontecou, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. Hunt (1935–2023), the first African American sculptor to receive a MoMA retrospective (1971), showed 'Opposed Forms' at the historic 1966 First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar; director Elena Filipovic called him one of the defining American sculptors of his generation.


