Sam Hunter (January 5, 1923 – July 27, 2014) was an American historian of modern art. He was an author, an Emeritus professor of art history at Princeton University, director of the Jewish Museum, founding director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, acting director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and a visiting professor at the Clark Art Institute at Williams College, Harvard University and various other institutions of higher learning.

He penned monographs, exhibition catalogues, articles, wrote the original book on the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, contributed to textbooks and various treatments of modern art. In addition to curating many museum and gallery exhibitions, Hunter has written on Francis Bacon, Tom Wesselman, George Segal, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Jackson Pollock, and many other contemporary and modern masters.