Biography

Sidney James Hunt was born in 1896 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. During the 1920s he designed bookplates and contributed modern-style drawings for several international art magazines, such as Artwork, Der Querschnitt, Der Sturm, Tambour and Contimporanul. Hunt also published experimental poems in modern journals, such as Transition, Seed, and Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms. In October 1925, he held his first solo exhibition at the Mayor Gallery in London. Between 1926 and 1932, he was a member of the Seven and Five Society, one of the most progressive art societies in interwar England. In 1926 and 1927, Hunt edited the avant-garde magazine Ray, which has been described as the English equivalent of influential art journals from the 1920s such as Merz, Mecano and De Stijl. Ray featured work of leading figures of the European avant-garde such as Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Theo van Doesburg, Naum Gabo and Hans Arp. It has been said that Hunt died in his studio in 1940, aged forty-four, during The Blitz.