Born in Los Angeles, Calif., Herb Dubin studied at the Los Angeles Art Center, Pasadena Museum of Fine Art, San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of Southern California. He graduated from USC with degrees from the Schools of Architecture and Fine Arts.
While serving in the U.S. Navy Dubin was stationed in San Francisco where he was exposed to the vividly explosive art and entertainment scenes in the Bay Area. It was during this time that he was inspired by the San Francisco School of Painting, where artists such as DeKooning and Diebenkorn were major representatives and the Abstract Expressionistic School of painting was at its peak.
Dubin began his career in the world with a shout, with an exhibition in the Los Angeles County Museum. In 1964 Dubin's unique style exploded with dynamic immediacy onto canvas and paper in oil and acrylic. His style combined brilliant color loaded imagery with emotion and imaginative prismatic use of form and space.
From 1965 to 1975 Dubin made his home in San Francisco and Sausalito where he experienced great artistic success and notoriety. Following his premiere one-man exhibition in 1966, Dubin's work appeared continuously in prominent San Francisco galleries and was avidly collected by Bay Area luminaries. The San Francisco and Oakland Museums of Fine Art showed his paintings in 1970-71. Interviews followed with Newsweek, Women's Wear Daily, "Good Morning America", San Francisco Chronicle, and Examiner, and several national newspapers. It was during this time period that time he was proclaimed Shreves of San Francisco's ARTIST of the Year.
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Dubin has traveled to Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, England, Bali and Thailand. He also made several extended visits to places like Maui, Taos, N.M., and Tepozlan, Mexico. Deeply influenced by each of the cultures he visited, Dubin transferred his experiences onto the canvas. While in Tepozlan in the early 1970s, Dubin began painting in gouache. Pastels were introduced in the early 1980s which further shaped his variety of styles. In the late 80s and early 90s his style further evolved, with the production of vibrant, multilayered gouaches and oils on canvas.
In 1988, Dubin made his home in the Northern California fishing village of Bodega Bay. Uniquely suited to Dubin's work style, he was able to make his "Studio Gallery" part of his home. He continued to create figurative works and his impressions of the dramatically colorful and ever-changing rolling hills of Sonoma County were expressed as well.
"Art is an interactive event," says Dubin. "Painting comes out of my experience of capturing the form of feeling. My paintings focus on form, color and space. My feelings of the moment guide the transfer of mental images in to visual images."
Dubin lived and painted at his home in Cardiff by the Sea until 2006. Upon the passing of his parents Dubin struck out again, this time heading south to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This Cosmopolitan city, often been refered to as the "Paris of the Americas", has again changed Dubin the painter as well as the man and and his work. It can be seen in the the strength and the prismatic clarity of the ever changing urban scene before him.
Dubin's interpretation of the world around him shares with the viewer an an ever changing world of color, form, light. He continues to distill feeling and emotion, while sharing the un-idealized expressive and imaginative nature of the human form with its multifaceted psyches. "There is always a story to be told" says Dubin. "The focus of my work is to tell it with insight, and with a bold hand."
Selected Artworks
