John Hubbard (American, b. 1931)

Conservatory Study, 1985

signed and dated lower right 'John Hubbard 1985'

pastel

12 x 22 ½ in. (30.5 x 57.2 cm.)

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Born in Connecticut, John Hubbard was educated at Harvard University. After completing three years of military service based in Japan, he returned to the United States in 1956 and studied at the Art Students League of New York and with the Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hoffman. He then moved to Rome, painted in Italy and travelled across Europe. In 1961, Hubbard married and settled near Bridport in Dorset. Although inspired by landscape, each with a specific starting point in nature, his paintings become richly colourful abstract works. He makes sketches and charcoal drawings in the open and works in the studio on larger charcoal drawings and the paintings, with their extraordinary sense of the dramatic and subtle effects of light and colour. The image of the garden has been a consistent theme in his work and Hubbard writes of this work that it is one of ‘the pastel is one of several I made in the 1980’s as colour experiments. It’s called “Conservatory Study”, and was part of the work that led up to my Spanish paintings.’ Represented by Marlborough Fine art in London, over the years he has had many solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States including a major solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and, in 1986, in another major solo exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. His work can be seen in prominent public collections such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Fitzwilliam Museum, the National Gallery of Malaysia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery and the Yale Centre of British Art.