John Hultberg

John Hultberg was born in Berkeley, California in 1922. Hultberg began to draw and paint as a young child, experimenting with color. In 1943, Hultberg received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Fresno College. Hultberg also studied at California State College and later at the California School of Fine Arts with Richard Diebenkorn, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko. Hultberg participated in various shows soon after military duty; thereafter he attended the Art Students League of New York in 1949. When Hultberg was enrolled in the Art Students League, he became part of the Abstract Expressionist community that included Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Rauschenberg. Hultberg also participated in many art shows in Paris during the early 1950s. Hultberg returned to New York in 1956 and he was welcomed and shown by major museums around the nation including the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum. Hultberg married artist Lynne Drexler in 1961, the couple began summering on remote Monhehgan Island, Maine. Hultberg taught on both East and West coasts and in Hawaii. Hultberg possessed an extremely unique avant-garde, surreal, abstract style which has gained acclaimed recognition by serious collectors and critics. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan, Whitney, MoMA, Guggenheim, Smithsonian, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.