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John HubbardCoaster, Oil on Canvas Painting by John Hubbard, 19621962
1962
About the Item
Coaster, Oil on Canvas Painting by John Hubbard 1931-2017, 1962
Additional information:
Medium: Oil on canvas
178 x 152.5 cm
70 1/8 x 60 1/8 in
Signed, dated, titled and inscribed 'II' verso
For an artist renowned as a supreme colourist, the small group of monochrome works that John Hubbard painted between 1958 and 1965 are bold, dramatic and revelatory. The additional surprise is that they are landscapes. They feature the vigorous brushstrokes and the striking compositions that we most associate with Hubbard’s portrayal of natural phenomena, along with a characteristic spontaneity and energy. All that is removed is colour, though that only makes them more compelling.
The genesis of these black and white paintings is to be found in Hubbard’s initial training in Abstract Expressionism in his native USA and his sympathies with the likes of Jackson Pollock, Motherwell, Brooks and Kline. They are redolent of an artist in transition, finding a compromise between hard-edged abstraction and representation, as he forged his own way. There is a distinct graphic quality found in early paintings such as Coaster that link to Hubbard’s affinity with the calligraphic art of East Asia. In his text for Hubbard’s exhibition at the Warwick Arts Trust (1981), Bryan Robertson recounts how Hubbard was posted to Japan where he stayed until 1956. “At Harvard he had also studied Japanese and Chinese painting, gardens and architecture, but was equally absorbed by the relationship between work and life in Japan, and by landscape or bird or flower painting in black and white. In Chinese art this is the area which also interested Hubbard the most; and as a whole, he prefers Chinese to Japanese art.” Indeed, Hubbard also noted that he liked the “Chinese idea of allowing a subject to absorb you... and then be assayed in a spontaneous, animated way, so as to preserve a sense of life.” Hubbard’s black and white paintings certainly do that. They enthral now, just as they did when they were first painted.
Provenance
Estate of the Artist
Literature
'John Hubbard', Unicorn Press, 2017
John Hubbard was an American-born abstract impressionist painter who worked in Britain.
Born in Connecticut on 26 February, Hubbard was the son of a lawyer. His family spent much of their time at their small farm in the countryside. Hubbard read English at Harvard University and, after graduating, completed three years of military service in Japan during the Korean War. On his return to the USA in 1956, Hubbard studied at the Art Students League of New York and with the hugely influential Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hoffman. Other students of Hofmann include Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert De Niro Sr., the designer Ray Eames and, briefly, Jackson Pollock. After finishing his education, Hubbard then moved to Rome, spending time travelling and painting throughout Italy and wider Europe. In 1961, Hubbard married and settled near Bridport in Dorset.
The artist had first visited England in 1958 and, like many others involved in the 'Ab-Ex' movement of New York, travelled to the popular artist’s colony of St Ives, where he met the painter Peter Lanyon. From this point on, Hubbard concentrated on a kind of landscape painting which goes beyond the depiction of appearance, alluding to natural forms and the rhythms of growing while recreating the experience of a particular place. In Dorset, the artist’s interests in East Asian painting and philosophy and early influences such as De Kooning, Rothko and Mark Tobey were applied to his contemplation of the natural world.
From 1963 to '65 Hubbard taught at Camberwell School of Art and worked as a designer and painter for various ballet companies. His designs included the costumes and décor for 'Le Baiser de la Fee' by the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam in 1968, the costumes and décor for 'Midsummer' by the Royal Ballet in London in 1983, and work for 'Sylvia' by the Royal Ballet in London in 1985. As a guest artist at the National Gallery of Malaysia in 1990, Hubbard also designed a series of batik hangings, still on display in Kuala Lumpur.
Hubbard enjoyed working in series, a method for further understanding natural changes, taking his inspiration from sites he visited in Greece, Morocco, and France. From his time growing up in rural America, Hubbard had long been passionate about gardening and the subject of the garden is a recurring theme in his work, including pieces inspired by Abbotsbury, Tresco, the Alhambra, and his own mature garden in Dorset. Making sketches and charcoal drawings en plein air, Hubbard would move into the studio to create his paintings with their extraordinary sense of drama and subtle use of light and colour.
From the 1960s onwards, Hubbard increasingly showed his paintings in exhibitions in Britain and abroad. This included solo shows at New Art Centre, London (1960-'61, '63, '65, '67, '69-'75), University of Leicester (1964), St Catherine's College, Oxford (1966), Aberdeen Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery Birmingham (both 1975), Newlyn Gallery (1978), Fischer Fine Art, London (1979 and '84). With a rising interest in his work, Hubbard was the subject of a film aired as part of the South Bank Show in 1981. In 1985, his success was rewarded with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and, the following year, a major retrospective at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1995, he was commissioned to create an installation for the entry hall to the headquarters of Smith & Nephew in London. In 1996 he was awarded the Jerwood Prize and was invited to create work to be included in 'Eight Variations on a Drawing by Rubens' at the Fitzwilliam Museum (1998). Other commissions include Dorchester Hospital (1990), Charleston Farmhouse, Sussex (1995), Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon Manor (2000), Said Business School, Oxford (2005), and Royal Parks, London (2008). In 1993, the artist was chosen as a Member of the Advisory Panel for Tate St. Ives. In 1997, he was chosen to curate Dorset County Museum's Elisabeth Frink exhibition.
Hubbard’s work is not representational, with water or sky suggested and alluded to, yet they are far from abstract. Specialising in "contained landscape and enclosed spaces" – quarries, caves, rocks, woodland – rather than grand sweeping views, he explored the atmosphere and the spirit of places such as the play of light through leaves or the textures of stone or foliage.
His work can be found in many public and private collections, including the Financial Times, Nuffield Foundation, Deutsche Bank, Yale Centre of British Art, Connecticut, National Gallery of Malaysia, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, City Art Gallery, Bristol, New College, Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Arts Council of Great Britain, V&A Museum, British Museum and Tate Gallery.
- Creator:John Hubbard (1931 - 2017, American)
- Creation Year:1962
- Dimensions:Height: 70.13 in (178.14 cm)Width: 60.13 in (152.74 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Kingsclere, GB
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2718214574592
John Hubbard
John Hubbard (1931 - 2017) American-born John Hubbard grew up in Connecticut and studied at Harvard University. While on military service (1953 and 1956) during the Korean War, he was stationed in Japan, where he developed an interest in the art from Japan and East Asia more generally. This grew into an admiration of the traditions of Taoism and Zen; philosophies he equated with the act of abstract painting. He has cited Xie He, the sixth century Chinese painter who wrote: ‘In art, the terms ancient and modern have no place’ – a thought that speaks clearly to the modern abstract painter’s inspiration from wide and eclectic sources. Hubbard studied in New York at the Art Students League from 1956–58. He spent time also working with Hans Hoffmann, an influential abstract painter whose associations with Picasso, Matisse and Braque in Paris in the 1930s, brought those influences to the emerging number of Abstract Expressionist artists in New York. Hubbard moved to England in 1960, settling in Dorset and associating with the St Ives art circle. His painting became infused with light, inspired by the open land and seascapes of Cornwall, Scotland and later, Morocco and Spain. Hubbard participated in residencies in America and Malaysia and, in 1996, won the Jerwood Prize in Britain. In recent years his work has explored the theme of gardens, and he has completed several garden and painting commissions for public and private organisations.
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