In 1958, after leaving New York and with a brief stop in St Ives, Hubbard arrived in Rome, living and working there for two years. Before emigrating from the USA, Hubbard had studied at the Art Students League of New York, NYC, a school at the centre of the Abstract Expressionist movement that counted Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Helen Frankenthaler and many other avant-garde artists as students. Hubbard's work from this period aligns to the painting theories associated with this group, notably Clement Greenberg's ideas on Modernism, with its focus on the physical qualities of paint, sensuous action and the picture surface, all of which stayed with him throughout his time in Italy.

'Soon after completing my military service in the US Army in 1956, I rented a room in Hell's Kitchen, New York, on 57th Street and enrolled at the Arts Students League, also on 57th Street. This was an institution modelled on the French system, basically run by its students, where one could study with the teacher of one's choice drawn from a wide range of disciplines, from portrait painting to abstract to anatomy. Beginning with Edwin Dickinson and George Grosz, I later switched to Morris Kantor, a modernist teacher of high repute. The custom in Kantor's class was for his students to work from a model positioned at one end of the large studio, or simply to work on their own at easels. It was very open and free. There was no thought of capturing individual poses or a realistic setting, but rather a free-wheeling evocation of the event itself.' (Quoted from 'John Hubbard, Remaking Landscape')

This painting is from a small group of works discovered in the Artist’s studio after his death, represented by Jenna Burlingham Fine Art.