Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Alexis Hunter artist

Alexis Hunter was born in Epsom, near Auckland, New Zealand in 1948. From 1966–69 she studied Painting and History of Art and Architecture at the Elam School of Fine Art, Auckland and moved to London in 1972, where she became actively involved in the Women's Workshop of the newly formed Artists' Union. Working at the forefront of the feminist art movement and feminist theory, she produced photographs which explored the reality of women's lives, from a socialist feminist perspective, and a personal examination of women's psycho-social identity.

Born: 1948 Epsom, New Zealand

Died: 2014 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1972

Other name/s: Alexis Jan Atthill Hunter


Biography

Feminist artist Alexis Hunter was born in Epsom, near Auckland, New Zealand on 4 November 1948. Her parents Joan (née Atthill) and Jack Hunter had moved from Australia with their confectionery firm, Sweetacres; her mother was also an amateur archaeologist. Hunter later remembered: 'I grew up in an area favoured by [...] immigrants from Holland, Germany and Sweden. They brought ideas of politics, sexual diversity, interest in other cultures and importance of artistic work to the small village area of Titirangi' (The Guardian, 1981). Between 1966 and 1969 she studied Painting and History of Art and Architecture at the Elam School of Fine Art, Auckland, where she was influenced by the socialist ideas of her tutor, painter Colin McCahon.

After travelling across Australia, Hunter moved to London in 1972 to join her twin sister Alyson Hunter, a photographer, and her partner Darcy Lange, painter, documentary photographer, and filmmaker. Soon afterwards, she became actively involved in the Women's Workshop of the newly formed Artists' Union. The Workshop attempted to provide a sympathetic environment as well as to organise campaigns around the discriminatory conditions affecting women artists with children. She soon realised that painting was not the best medium to express her political ideas and ambitions, and that photography allowed her the total control of being both the subject and the artist. In an interview she later declared that ‘Painting has been overloaded with the same meaning for hundreds of years and I wanted to explore different meanings. I wanted to deal with the reality of the change in women’s lives which was happening in that decade, to confront the fear of independence’ (Osborne 1984, p. 95). Hunter used photography in a powerful way, as a tool to take control of her own sexuality and to buck the expected norms of society and gender stereotypes. Working at the forefront of the feminist art movement and feminist theory, she exhibited her photographs with various collectives of women artists during the 1970s.

From 1976 she was involved in running the exhibition space at the Women's Free Arts Alliance. While supporting herself by working in film and animation, she began to produce work which combined the reality of women's lives, from a socialist feminist perspective, and a personal examination of women's psycho-social identity. Hunter's New Zealand identity became crucial in The Object Series (1974), featuring photos of isolated portions of men's bodies, with several focusing on their tattoos. This was a reaction to a lecture Hunter attended in London, where a British academic spoke about tattoos in a 'patronising and offensive' way; Hunter was struck by this narrow-mindedness, as growing up in New Zealand she had learned about the long-standing traditions relating to the Māori and Pacific Island people's tattoos. Other photos in the series emphasised sections of the male body without showing their faces, twisting the gaze and objectifying them, in the same way that women have been objectified throughout the course of Western art history. The Object Series was produced in a period when the idea of the ‘male gaze’ had just begun circulating in feminist circles. Laura Mulvey wrote her influential essay ‘Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema’ in 1973, and it was published in 1975, the year after Hunter produced this series of photographs

During the 1980s Hunter became Visiting Lecturer at The Byam Shaw School of Art in London and the School of Visual Arts in New York. She then worked as an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Houston, Texas. Using London as her base, she worked and showed her artwork internationally, including regular exhibitions at the Whitespace Gallery in New Zealand. Her inclusion in WACK!, Art and The Feminist Revolution, the 2007 exhibition at Los Angeles MOCA, and in Woman: Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: works from the Sammlung Verbung Collection, a touring exhibition first displayed at Mumok in Vienna in 2014 (prior to visiting ten other European cities) helped established her reputation as a leading feminist artist. Throughout the rest of her life she continued to investigate the problems faced by the current generation of women, specifically related to consumerism and male/female relationships. In 1986 she married Baxter Mitchell and together they owned the Falcon pub in Camden Town, north London, one of the great 'indie' music venues of the late 1980s and 1990s. Suffering from motor neurone disease and eventually able to communicate only via an electronic notepad, Alexis Hunter died in London, England in 2014. Her work is represented in UK public collections including Tate, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge, and the Arts Council Collection. Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London presented the posthumous solo show, Alexis Hunter: Sexual Warfare in 2019.

Related books

  • Natasha Hoare, Alexis Hunter: Sexual Warfare (London: Goldsmiths Press, 2019)
  • Patricia Allmer, 'Alexis Hunter: Touching Points, Points of Touch', in Gabriele Schor ed., The Feminist Avant-Garde: Art of the 1970s: The Sammlung Verbund Collection, Vienna (Munich: Prestel, 2016), pp. 309-317
  • Gabriele Shor ed., Woman: the Feminist Avant-garde of the 1970s : Works from the Sammlung Verbund Vienna (Brussels: Bozar, 2014)
  • George Vaset, Obituaries: Alexis Hunter, Art Monthly, April 2014, p. 16
  • Kathy Battista, 'Alexis Hunter', Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture, No. 105, 2007, p. 189
  • Alexis Hunter, Lynda Morris and Lucy R Lippard, Alexis Hunter: Radical Feminism the 1970s (Norwich: The Norwich School of Art and Design, 2006)
  • Myth and Culture: Alexis Hunter at Studio Ceramics (Waitakere City: Corbon Estate Arts Centre, 2004)
  • Alexis Hunter: Fears/Dreams/Desires: a Survey Exhibition, 1976-1988 (Auckland: Auckland City Art Gallery, 1989)
  • CarolineOsborne, 'Alexis Hunter Interviewed by Caroline Osborne', Feminist Review, No. 18, Winter 1984, pp. 93-101
  • Lucy R Lippard and Margaret Richards, Alexis Hunter: Photographic Narrative Sequences (London: Edward Totah Gallery, 1981)
  • Waldemar Januszczak, 'Alexis Hunter', The Guardian, 16 October 1981, p. 10
  • Rodney Fumpston, Alexis Hunter, Andrew McAlpine: Etchings, Paintings, Holograms (London: New Zealand High Commission, 1975)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Artists' Union Women's Workshop (staff member)
  • Elam School of Fine Art, Auckland, New Zealand (student) (student)
  • The Byam Shaw School of Art, London, England (lecturer) (lecturer)
  • The School of Visual Arts, New York, USA (lecturer) (lecturer)
  • University of Houston, Texas (assistant professor) (assistant professor)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Alexis Hunter: Sexual Warfare, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London (2019)
  • Sammlung Verbung Collection, Mumok, Vienna and touring (2017)
  • Alexis Hunter and Joe Spence, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2013)
  • me maskulin, Kings College and ArtsBar, London (2010)
  • This Could Happen To You, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2010)
  • Alexis Hunter / Radical Feminism, Norwich Gallery, Norwich (2006)
  • Alexis Hunter / Interface Illusions, New Hall, Cambridge University, Cambridge (2000)
  • Alexis Hunter / Introduction to Feminist Photographs, Gerry's Private Members Club, London (2000)
  • 20th Century Women's Art, New Hall, Cambridge University (1992)
  • Hand Signals, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England and elsewhere in the UK (1986)
  • Contemporary Acquisitions, The Imperial War Museum, London (1985)
  • Alexis Hunter / Conflicts of the Psyche, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff (1985)
  • Photo(Graphic) Vision, The Winchester Gallery, Winchester (1982)
  • Sense and Sensibility in Feminist Art Practice, The Midland Group, Nottingham (1982)
  • Alexis Hunter / Sequential Xerox Work, New 57 Gallery, Edinburgh (1980)
  • Issue, Social Strategies by Women Artists, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1980)
  • Camden Artists Group, Camden Arts Centre, London (1979)
  • Three Perspectives on Photography, Hayward Gallery, London (1979)
  • Alexis Hunter / Approaches to Fear, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1978)
  • Alexis Hunter / Towards a Feminist Perception, Woman's Free Arts Alliance (1977)
  • Sexuality and Socialisation, Northern Arts Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1975)
  • British Realists, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (1975)
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Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Alexis Hunter]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Alexis Hunter] in the Ben Uri Library