Photo by Scotia Lurhs.

Tom Hunter Biography

Tom Hunter was born in Dorset in 1965. He left school and worked on a farm for a year before going to work for the Forestry Commission.

In 1986 he moved to Hackney, East London and began working as a tree surgeon. At 23 he went to Puerto Rico and the USA travelling and working for the USA Forestry Service.

At the age of 25, Hunter began studying Photography A-level at night school, which he followed with a degree at the London College of Printing (now Communications). He graduated with first class honours in 1994.

He received The Tredou Arts and Culture Award in 1995 and the Royal College of Art First Year Award for Best Photography a year later. In 1997 he received his master's degree from the Royal College of Art and in the same year he was awarded the Painter-Stainers Photography Prize at the RCA.

In 1998 Hunter received the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery with 'Woman reading a Possession Order', an image that first brought him to the attention of the public. Compositionally based on a Vermeer painting, the photograph reflected the reality of Hunter's life in Hackney at the time, living in a series of squats and using the people around him as his models.

Since then, Hunter's work has been shown in exhibitions throughout the world, including Dublin, New York, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Toronto and Tokyo. He received the John Kobal Book Award in 2003 and currently lives and works in Hackney.

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