Page 42 - Studio International - June 1965

John Hultberg tensions in space

1 by G S Whittet

2
John Hultberg, exhibiting at the Piccadilly Gallery,
London. represents a phenomenon of American paint­
ing. An artist who has not rejected the drawing of form
that goes back in its conventions to the pre-history cave
bison of the Palaeolithic age at Lascaux and Altamira.
Combined with this vivid outline drawing is an interior
perspective that raising and lowering its horizon line
maintains the converging parallels in a grid system that
paradoxically suggests a fluid movement or its possi­
bility-like the piled-up ice-floes on a narrow river,
waiting the moment of thaw to unlock once again its
momentum to the turbulence of gravity's pull.
Hultberg's uniqueness rests in his ability to create the
illusion of movement through visual representation
welded by the catalyst of his organising design. Cubes,
blocks, circles and the occasional vague cut-out
silhouettes of human figures appear on different
planes within the picture frame yet their association has
an integration stemming from the seeming inevitable
judgement of proportions and placing.
Cloud Demons, which is reproduced in colour, is a new

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