January saw the arrival of a group of twelve early paintings presented on behalf of the John Hubbard estate. Hubbard sadly died last year and these paintings had been unseen for the last fifty years.
John Hubbard was an American-born abstract impressionist painter who worked in Britain. Born in Connecticut, 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.. In 1961, Hubbard married and settled near Bridport in Dorset.
On his move to the UK, his work became more suggestive of the landscape with water or sky 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.
Hubbard exhibited regularly with the New Art Centre and Marlborough Fine Art. A monograph on the artist is due to be pulblished this Spring.
