SPIRIT DESCENDING, ASCENDING, and EVER-MOVING
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A stunning bronze sculpture by Richard Hunt honoring the life and ministry of Tom Stockdale crowns renovations to the Disciples Divinity House at the University of Chicago, symbolizing welcome and provides barrier-free access to the historic building.
A magnificent gift in honor of James E. Stockdale funded the courtyard redesign and related renovations to ensure access to the first floor. When University Christian Church in Seattle, Washington, ceased its common life in 2018, the congregation wanted to honor him, their esteemed former minister. The sculpture was commissioned by the family of Thomas V. Stockdale in his memory. He was Minister Emeritus of Union Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis.
One of the most important sculptors of our time, Richard Hunt became the first African American artist to have a major solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1971). More than 150 of his public sculptures are displayed throughout the United States, including in the National Museum of African American History and Culture and in a current solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Mr. Hunt's sculpture creates a conversation between fluidity and metal’s strength, form and transformation. The artist's direct metal technique involves cutting, shaping, and welding sheets of bronze into a shape-shifting, ascending form.
Richard Hunt grew up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago. His history converges with that of Jim and Tom Stockdale on East 57th Street: as young man, Richard had taken classes at the University of Chicago and worked in the biology laboratories a block away from DDH where Jim and Tom Stockdale both studied.
James E. and Thomas V. Stockdale grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where both graduated from Peoria Manual High School and Bradley University before entering the University of Chicago Divinity School as Disciples Divinity House Scholars, Jim arrived in Chicago in 1952; after graduation and ordination in 1956, he served Orchard Street Church in nearby Blue Island before moving downstate to Mount Carmel. In the mid-sixties, he was called to University Christian Church in Seattle, from which he retired in 1994. He was a member of the DDH Board of Trustees from 1985-2019.
Tom headed west to attend Pacific School of Religion in Berkley, California, before returning to Illinois, DDH, and before graduating in 1960. He served Disciples congregations in Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, and Maryland. From 1986-99 he was the senior minister of Union Avenue Christian Church in St. Louis. After his death in 2016, his family decided to commission a sculpture in his memory. They envisioned an angelic evocation that would remember him and inspire future generations of House Scholars; they discovered the remarkable artistry and vision of Richard Hunt.
Tom and Jim Stockdale were both devoted to congregational life and worship, to ecumenism, and to social and community outreach. Each loved the arts — music, visual arts, architecture, theater, theology, and poetry. In their lives and ministries — as in Richard Hunt's sculpture — form was ever being transformed, with God's spirit descending, ascending, and ever-moving amidst the earthen stuff of shared life.
The courtyard and sculpture were dedicated on October 24, 2020.
Thank you to Chris Culp, Dean of DDH, for much of the information contained in this story and the photographs.