John Hubbard
John Hubbard (1931 – 6 January 2017) was an American-born abstract impressionist painter who has lived and worked in England for more than 50 years. He won the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1996.
He was a landscape painter of an unconventional type, in that he fused elements of Chinese painting and contemporary abstraction within the tradition of late 19th century European landscape sensibility. The result is work which conveys a strong sense of the feel of landscape, its essence and physical presence. As the New York Times critic wrote in 1986: "these are paintings to be savoured by those who like consistency in art".
John was born in Connecticut in 1931 and read English at Harvard before going to Japan, where he served in counter-intelligence in the United States army and developed his interest in Chinese and Japanese art. Between 1956 and ’58 he studied at the Art Students League, New York and at Provincetown, Massachusetts with Hans Hofman. He then spent two years in Rome before moving to England. He lived in Dorset since his marriage in 1961.
He visited England for the first time in 1958 and, with the abstract expressionism current in New York fresh in his mind, went to St Ives and met the painter Peter Lanyon. From 1960 onwards he has concentrated on a kind of landscape painting which goes beyond the depiction of appearance, alluding to natural forms, to the rhythms of growing things and recreating the experience of being in a particular place. In Dorset his interest in oriental painting and thought and the early influence of artists such as De Kooning, Mark Rothko and Mark Tobey became linked in his mind with the contemplation of the natural world.
Here are some links to John’s Website, Sladers Yard, Jenna Burlington, the Tate.
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