John Hubbard
by Katherine Locke

When John Hubbard and his wife Caryl drove over Eggardon Heath on their first visit to Dorset, they were so moved by the landscape that they instantly fell asleep. ‘When we woke up, the clouds had cleared and it was brilliant sunshine’ recalls John ‘maybe it was divine intervention, because we have been here ever since’.
That was back in 1961. The couple had come to Dorset on the advice of a well travelled artist friend who found the county especially beautiful. ‘We came to stay with friends of friends, but after the extraordinary drive, we found a house and started the process of moving here permanently within twenty four hours’. It is a wonderfully romantic story and one that John admits would be hard to repeat today, ‘You could do that sort of thing in the sixties. House prices were more manageable and Dorset was largely agricultural’.
Forty years ago John was one of the very few contemporary artists working in Dorset. He was committed to developing his painting and raising his young family. As a result, he says he had a very different experience of the sixties than the one we are more familiar with today. John talks about the relationship between art and music during that time and the influence that art school had on wider culture. ‘There was an interaction then’ he says ‘that mixture of disciplines and crossing boundaries was fantastic’. His wife recently went to see the This was Tomorrow - Art and the 60’s exhibition at Tate Britain and commented that she was pleasantly surprised how lively and clever the work still is and there was an exchange of ideas between practitioners that is not often seen today.
‘There was a sense of a creative wave’ John remarks ‘We have had over 100 years of ‘modern’ art and throughout that time we see groups of great artists emerging in particular places at particular times. Certain artists work well in a shared environment, in close proximity to others but on their own they seize up. The present milieu of West Dorset is well-suited to community-minded artists but equally congenial to anyone.’
John has always worked alone. His studio is testament to the sheer volume of work he has produced and the continual striving that marks the true artist. It has been said that he is an abstract painter; John describes himself a landscape artist. We could spend a lot of time discussing definitions, but however he is categorised, it is clear his fascination with the natural world remains a constant theme in his work. His large drawings in pencil and charcoal have a strong sense of the organic. His oil paintings, some of which are huge, are vivid explorations of the natural.
Although John is American, his affinity with the British landscape is obvious. His interest in gardens resulted in a large body of work, some of which are currently on display in his gallery at Chilcombe. It is an impressive collection in a fantastic setting. His approach to the subject is always fresh and engaging. One critic wrote that John ‘is not a view painter but an observer of nature’ and we share the sense of the infinite variation of pattern and form being explored.
John has had an almost unbroken painting career and belongs to a generation of artists who are still producing startling work well into their sixties and seventies. As John says ‘art is like telling a long story. It has lots of changes of plot and pace. The work evolves before you - there are good bits and not so good - some happy parts and some sadness. There is backtracking and interweaving - just like a good novel.’
John’s story is far from over. He is currently working on a new series of watercolours, including some inspired by the 65th Psalm, particularly the line ‘and the little hills rejoice on either side’. The work shimmers with translucent colour. ‘I first worked in watercolour on a trip to Greece’ he says. ‘My wife liked them, so I spent a long time on the telephone to Windsor & Newton finding out about the longevity of modern watercolours. I don’t want them to fade’.
It seems clear on meeting John that his work, as well as his passion for it, is in no danger of fading yet.