He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943–46, rising to the rank of lieutenant junior grade and receiving five battle stars.
[2] Sam Hunter began his professional career in 1947, when he joined the New York Times as an art critic for a two and a half year stint.
In addition to curating many museum and gallery exhibitions, Hunter has written on Francis Bacon, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Isamu Noguchi, Larry Rivers, Alex Katz, Tony Rosenthal, Jean Dubuffet, Hans Hofmann, Philip Guston, Leonard Nelson, and many other modern artists.
Hunter's early photographs of Francis Bacon and his studio, taken in London in 1950, were most recently seen in the 2008/9 Francis Bacon exhibition that originated at the Tate Modern in London, went to the Museo del Prado in Barcelona and ended at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and that were used in the accompanying exhibition catalogue.
In addition, Professor Hunter forged long term friendships and associations with many well known artists, museum directors, art critics, curators, dealers, collectors and other academics and authors of the twentieth century, from the mid-1940s, some of which endured into the early 21st century.