Hampshire Landscape

This painting was created for the Southern Railway publicity department as a possible poster design. In 1944 the artist was commissioned by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway to create several works that would be used in travel posters for Ireland and the United Kingdom. As well as Hampshire Hubbard created works depicting Padstow, New Forest, Exmoor, Dorchester and Dartmoor.

Hubbard has conveyed the sentiments of the Hampshire landscape through gently rolling hills dotted with deciduous trees and a winding river. The scene shows a small hamlet with slate and thatched roofs. The inhabitants of these building seem hard at work and can be seen digging in the vegetable patches, refilling the barns and attending to the bees in their hives. Hubbard’s use of flat colour, choice of subject and treatment of the landscape lend a sense of everyday familiarity to the composition.

Hesketh Hubbard

Hubbard was a painter, printmaker, furniture designer, writer and lecturer. He studied at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art, Croydon School of Art and Chelsea Polytechnic.

Hubbard was the founder and director of The Forest Press; for a time master of the Art Worker’ Guild and the author of over a dozen books including ‘A Hundred Years of British Painting 1851-1951′.

He was a member of many societies connected with painting and printmaking in Britain and overseas and was the President of the Royal Society of British Artists.

One of the artist’s main aims was to make art accessible to ordinary people.