Biography from The Copley Society of Boston
Robert Douglas Hunter was born in Boston in 1928, and has lived in Massachusetts all his life. He enrolled at Vesper George School of Art in Boston after his discharge from the Marine Corps and graduated with honors in 1949. During the summers of 1949 and 1950, Hunter studied painting with Henry Hensche at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown. It was there that he met R.H. Ives Gammell, who then maintained a summer studio in Provincetown and with whom Hunter studied from 1950 to 1955.
Hunter was himself an instructor at the Vesper George School of Art from 1950 until its closing in 1983. He was also on the teaching staff of the Worcester Art Museum from 1965 to 1975, and he has taught privately for over 40 years. Hunter was also instrumental in the continuation of the Gammell teaching studio after the artist’s death.
A member of many professional organizations including the Copley Society of Boston, the Guild of Boston Artists, and the Provincetown Art Association, Hunter has won numerous awards for his work. In 1979, Hunter received a citation from the Governor of Massachusetts in recognition of his many years of painting in Provincetown an Boston and his contribution to the education of youth.
His work can be found in numerous public, museum and corporate collections including the Chrysler Museum, Virginia; Harvard University; Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; the Boston Archdiocese; Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, WA. In early 2001, a gallery was dedicated in Hunter’s honor at the Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA. Robert Douglas Hunter died in 2014.
