In his youth Hunter spent most of his spare time sketching from nature, and on leaving school he became a clerk in a shipping office in Glasgow, where he stayed for four years.
There he met and befriended William Black, a journalist who later became a novelist, and began to study at a local art school, often working out of doors with Milne Donald, a painter who taught him landscape painting.
[3] Although he returned to Scotland to paint nearly every year, from 1876 Hunter lived in Melbury Road, Kensington, on the west side of Holland Park.
Hunter’s artist friends and neighbours included Lord Leighton, George Frederic Watts, and Luke Fildes.
[4][1] Hunter died in September 1904, at Lugar House, 14 Melbury Road, Kensington, leaving a substantial estate valued at £11,400,[5] equivalent to £1,551,454 in 2023.