A FORMER Royal Green Jackets soldier was chosen to honour a historic England captain with her portrait for the ‘Home of Cricket’.
Robert Hunt, from Hyde, won a competition to produce a portrait for the famous cricketer, Baroness Rachael Heyhoe Flint. The piece was unveiled at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, on Wednesday, August 17 by Rachael’s son Ben Flint.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint OBE is best known for captaining England’s female cricket team from 1966 to 1978 and being unbeaten in six test series. The ‘pioneer for women in cricket’ died in January 2017 and was later commemorated in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards. The gate to Lord’s Cricket Ground, previously titled East Gate, has been renamed the Heyhoe Flint Gate with the bronze relief portrait by Robert Hunt taking pride of place.
The Winchester sculptor belongs to The Society of Portrait Sculptors, a representative body of professional sculptors. The club was approached by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), based at Lord’s, to find a suitable artist for the relief portrait of the sporting icon.
As an experienced sculptor of more than 30 years, Mr Hunt stepped forward and came out on top of the shortlisted final five competitors. The former military man said: “It was overwhelming to win the competition as I knew I was up against some very tough competition.”
The finished piece was revealed, before the England v South Africa men’s test match, in front of a crowd of past and present cricketers as well as MCC president, Clare Connor, and chief executive, Guy Lavender.
Following the sculpture’s reveal, Robert, 76, said: “I felt pride, of course, but also a feeling of unreality. You cannot quite believe you have done it.
“The unveiling of every new commission is an unnerving occasion. You have often spent many weeks and months isolated in your studio hoping to do justice to the piece, and it is only in those seconds after the unveiling that you are able to judge whether you have made a success of it.”
Both Robert and his wife Belinda, an artist herself, now work in their studios along the South Down Way in Lomer Farm on the Preshaw Estate. The couple have lived in Hyde for 35 years, following Mr Hunt’s army career with the Royal Green Jackets, finishing at the Peninsula Barracks in Winchester.
The sculptor draws experience from his time at St Thomas Centre, in Winchester, where he was tutored by Ann Hughes, a former Winchester College teacher. Robert added: “She gave me a wonderful grounding in the disciplines I needed.”
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The local creative has completed more than 70 commissions during his career, his main interest being figurative work like human portraits. Robert’s public work includes a sculptor of Professor Jacob Bronowski commissioned for Jesus College, Cambridge in 2011, a statue of ‘St Francis and the Hoopoe’ that was bought by The University of Winchester in 2014 and in 2015, the ex-soldier was commissioned to create a commemorative relief portrait of the English nurse, Edith Cavell, for the University of East Anglia.
The established artist has also been included in private collections in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa. For more go to roberthuntsculpture.com.
Robert’s latest commission, the bronze relief portrait of Baroness Heyhoe Flint, sits beside the newly named gate in St John’s Wood Road.
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