Michael John Hunt was born in England in 1941.  A self-taught artist, he opened The Hunt Gallery in 1972 to exhibit his paintings of interior scenes. In the 1990s, the gallery began to exhibit at fine art fairs in both England and the United States. As a result of one of these exhibitions, Micheal received an invitation to visit Winterthur. During his visit, Michael recognized the parallels between Winterthur and the great houses of England and felt a great empathy for Winterthur's founder, Henry Francis du Pont.  Since that visit, Michael has become a partner in the Winterthur licensing program and has begun to create a collection of paintings that capture Winterthur and the vision of its founder.

 

The project is a large one as Michael has decided to paint all 175 rooms of the Winterthur mansion, views of special exhibitions and events, and images of the garden and grounds.  To maintain the integrity of the collection, no paintings will be sold until it is complete and can be viewed as a whole.  To provide support during the project, select paintings have been reproduced as limited-edition, high-quality prints.  As licensed products, all royalties from the sales of the prints and the eventual sales of the paintings support educational programming at Winterthur.  To date, Michael has completed 112 views of Winterthur.

 

 

Kristin DeMesse of Winterthur Licensed Products visited Michael and his wife, Rosemary, at The Hunt Gallery, Sandwich, England, in April 2009.  The Winterthur Paintings were displayed throughout the gallery.