Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 3

John Hubbard
Coaster, Oil on Canvas Painting by John Hubbard, 1962

1962

Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request
Price Upon Request

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

More From This Seller

View All
Untitled, Oil on Canvas by Douglas Swan, 1963 Circa
By Douglas Litterick Swan
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Untitled, Oil on Canvas by Douglas Swan, 1963 Circa Additional information: Medium: Oil on Canvas 60 x 25 1/2 in 152.4 x 64.8 cm Signed and inscribed ve...
Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas

Bajazet Encag'd, Oil on Canvas Painting by Jack Knox, circa 1965
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Bajazet Encag'd, Oil on Canvas Painting by Jack Knox 1936-2015, circa 1965 Additional information: Medium: Oil on canvas 122 x 153 cm 48 1/8 x 60 1/4 in Signed; with title and Artist's address verso Provenance Acquired from the below by a private collector Exhibitions Royal Scottish Academy, 1965, cat. no.219 Jack Knox was a Scottish painter and teacher. Born in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire in 1936, Knox studied at Glasgow School of Art 1953-57, with teachers such William Armour and David Donaldson, before spending a year at the Paris atelier of the French painter André L'hote. Combining what he took from this experience with the impact of seeing the first show of American Abstract Expressionists in Europe in 1959, he began a diverse career which saw constantly changing styles, from gestural abstraction to still lifes and portraits. In 1965 he was appointed lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art where he worked alongside fellow artists such as Alberto Morrocco...
Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas

Painting, November, Oil on Board Painting by Robert Sadler, 1957
By Robert Sadler
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Painting, November, Oil on Board Painting by Robert Sadler, 1957 Additional information: Medium: Oil on board 48 x 61 in 121.9 x 154.9 cm Signed; titled on support bars (William) Robert Sadler produced abstract works in varying sizes with a spare poise and strong use of colour. The son of a noted racehorse trainer, Sadler was born at Falmouth House (now demolished) at the northern edge of Newmarket, Suffolk. By the age of fourteen he was drawing and painting aeroplanes, horses, houses and landscapes. After studying at Eastbourne College and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he read Mechanical Engineering, in 1930 he joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot. In 1942, whilst posted to the Air Ministry as Director of Plans, he attended art school in London and spent the following year in Turkey on special duties where he lectured at the Turkish Air Staff College and painted and rode race horses. At the end of the war he returned to the UK and took up the post of Station Commander at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire. In 1947 he moved to Denmark as Air Attache to the British Embassy in Copenhagen where he attended art school and two years later, whilst Vice-President of the RAF Officers' Selection Board, set-up a studio in Stockbridge whilst attending art school in Winchester. In 1953 he moved to the USA to take up the post as representative on the NATO Joint Chiefs of Staff Intelligence Committee during which period he attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC where he first encountered the work of the American Abstract Expressionists. Returning to the UK in 1955 he moved back to Newmarket, having retired from the RAF 'to devote the rest of my life to painting.' He attended Heatherley's School of Fine Art in London, Cambridge Technical College and became a member of the Winchester Art Society and the Cambridge Society of Painters & Sculptors. His first one-man show was at Swaffham Prior, Cambridge and from then until 1963 he lived and painted in a largely abstract expressionist style influenced by the Ecole de Paris Tachisme of Poliakoff and de Stael and by the contemporary British work of Peter Lanyon, William Scott, Bryan Wynter...
Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Board

Untitled (May), Oil on Paper Painting by John Hubbard, 1960
By John Hubbard
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Untitled (May), Oil on Paper Painting by John Hubbard 1931-2017, 1960 Additional information: Medium: Oil on paper 57 x 65 cm 22 1/2 x 25 5/8 in Signed and dated 'V-1960' American-...
Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper

Untitled Abstract, Oil on Board Painting by John Plumb, 1956/57
By John Plumb
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Untitled Abstract, Oil on Board Painting by John Plumb, 1956/57 Additional information: Medium: Oil on board 81.3 x 121.9 cm 32 x 48 in
Category

20th Century Landscape Paintings

Materials

Board

Untitled (November), Oil on Paper Painting by John Hubbard, 1965
By John Hubbard
Located in Kingsclere, GB
Untitled (November), Oil on Paper Painting by John Hubbard 1931-2017, 1965 Additional information: Medium: Oil on paper 16 x 21.5 cm 6 1/4 x 8 1/2 in Signed with initials and dated;...
Category

20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paper

You May Also Like

Lonistum 1961 - Canadian British Abstract art oil painting
By William John Bertram Newcombe
Located in London, GB
An original large abstract oil on canvas by British Canadian artist William John Bertram Newcombe. This stunning abstract expressionist oil in blues and greys is a bold, adventurous ...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Oil

John Harvey McCracken Minimalist Abstract Oil on Canvas, 1973
By John McCracken
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Bright, exciting painting by well known New York/New Mexico/California artist John McCracken. Framed simply and in excellent condition. Signed on the verso and dated 1973. Painting m...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Paintings

Materials

Paint

Unknown artist. Oil on board. Abstract composition. Dated 1999.
Located in København, Copenhagen
Unknown artist. Oil on board. Abstract composition. Dated 1999. Visible dimensions: 89 x 59 cm. Total dimensions: 102 x 72 cm. The frame measures: 2 cm. In excellent condition. Signe...
Category

1990s Unknown Paintings

Materials

Other

Peinture M.19, 1960 - Oil on canvas, 55x77 cm.
By Carlos Carnero
Located in Nice, FR
Oil on Canvas by Carlos Carnero. He was friend and pupil of Fernard Léger and friend of the most important artist of his time, such as Picasso and Matisse. This is from his abstrac...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

Unknown Artist, Oil on Board, Abstract Composition, Dated 1987
Located in København, Copenhagen
Unknown artist. Oil on board. Abstract composition. Dated 1987. The board measures: 65 x 50 cm. The frame measures: 5 mm. In excellent condition. Signed and dated.
Category

Vintage 1980s Unknown Modern Paintings

Materials

Other

Mid Century French abstract oil on canvas by Jean Maurice Lasnier
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Jean Maurice Lasnier (French, 1922 – 2006) Tempete Industrielle Signed ‘LASNIER’ (lower left) Oil on canvas 25.3/4 x 32 in. (65.4 x 81cm.) Provena...
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil