Andrew Lambirth meets the artist John Hubbard, whose work is concerned with atmosphere and the spirit of place
John Hubbard makes paintings about landscape which draw upon his early training in America and the influence of the Abstract Expressionists. But his pictures are far from abstract images: they are about the play of light through foliage or the surface of rock seen close to. They are concerned with atmosphere and the spirit of place — with earth, air, light and sometimes water interacting. He denies that these are aerial views, asserting that his paintings try to capture the experience of being in the landscape, rather than looking down upon it, and being in it over a period of time. ‘I came to prefer an image that reveals itself gradually, by stages,’ he says, ‘like so much of nature.’
Hubbard was born in 1931 in Ridgefield, Connecticut, took his BA in English at Harvard in 1953, was based in Japan for his military service (1953–6), then studied for a couple of years at the Art Students’ League in New York.
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