Anita Huffington, a celebrated sculptor whose evocative stone, bronze and wood figures meld classical elegance with natural form, passed away peacefully on March 15, 2025, in Northwest Arkansas at the age of 90.

She received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the U of A in 2014 for her notable achievements and accomplishments as an artist.

Additionally, three of her works are prominently displayed on campus, including Rebirth, which Huffington donated to the U of A Libraries in 1999 in memory of her daughter, Lisa Huffington Duque, a U of A student who was killed by a drunk driver in 1982.

A bronze torso titled Spring is also on permanent display in Bogle Hall in Old Main at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. A third Huffington piece, Earth, is prominently displayed in the Chancellor's Office.

Born on Dec. 25, 1934, in Baltimore, Maryland, Huffington studied dance, drama and art at the University of North Carolina, moving to New York in the 1950s to train under Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham.

Her time in New York placed her at the heart of the burgeoning abstract expressionist art scene. While still a young dancer, she formed close friendships with artists Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Franz Kline and Larry Rivers — as well as a larger, diverse group of sculptors, musicians and poets.

Over time, her interest in human form gravitated away from dance and toward the visual arts. Influenced by classical sculpture and stimulated by ideas she encountered in the New York art world, Huffington returned to school. She studied at Bennington College and the University of South Florida before returning to New York City, where she earned her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees at City College.

Huffington's first marriage, which ended in divorce, produced her beloved daughter, Lisa. During her time in Florida, Huffington met and married writer Hank Sutter. She and Sutter returned to New York when she entered City College and lived there until 1977, when, seeking solitude and inspiration, they moved to a log cabin in the Ozark Mountains near Winslow.

They spent more than a year restoring it and building a separate studio. It served her well. Working from her remote studio surrounded by towering trees and rugged landscapes, Huffington began producing the sculpture that cemented her reputation.

Inspired by ancient Greek and Roman statuary, her work also bore the textures of the natural world around her. Her figures seemed to emerge from nature itself.

Huffington garnered many honors and awards for her work during her lifetime. She was the recipient of a fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council in 1992, a residency at the Chateau de La Napoule Art Foundation in France in 1996, the Jimmy Ernst Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her lifetime contributions in 1997, the Arkansas Governor's Individual Artist Award in 2005 and an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the U of A in 2014.

Her work, exhibited continually since the mid-1970s, has been shown at the O'Hara Gallery and the ACA Galleries in New York, the Valley House Gallery in Dallas, the Triangle Gallery in San Francisco and the Harmon-Meek Gallery in Naples. It has been featured in numerous one-person museum exhibitions and included in many group exhibitions.

Huffington's sculpture Persephone was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it is currently featured in the exhibition titled Visualizing the Afterlife; her sculpture Cloud is part of the permanent collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Huffington's work can also be found in the collections of the Arkansas Art Center, Florida's Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art and the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia, as well as in numerous private and corporate collections throughout the world.

A monograph with text by Amei Wallach, Townsend Wolfe and the artist with photographs of her work by David Finn was published in 2007.

Huffington's life was marked by profound love and loss, all of which can be found reflected in her work. She endured the tragic death of her daughter, Lisa, in 1982, and the passing of her husband, Hank, in 2006. She viewed art as a means of processing and understanding life.

As she wrote in her artist's statement for the exhibition From the Forest at New York's O'Hara Gallery in 2006, "Art shows us life, enriches it and helps us to bear tragedy."

In 2015, she moved to Augusta, Georgia, to work with her long-time friend and fellow Baltimorean, painter Philip Morsberger, with whom she exhibited for nearly two decades until his death in 2021. Huffington then returned to her beloved Northwest Arkansas, where she resided in the Fayetteville area for the final four years of her life.

Huffington is considered "a singular artist whose deep reverence for nature and classical antiquity shaped a body of work that remains timeless." (ACA Gallery)

She is survived by a devoted circle of fellow artists, friends and admirers. Donations can be made to the Lisa Huffington Duque Award Fund at the U of A by contacting Becca Bradley at beccas@uark.edu. Condolences can also be shared online.