{"id":217669,"date":"2026-03-13T05:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217669\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:35:12","slug":"james-hubbell-and-bert-hubbell-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217669\/","title":{"rendered":"James Hubbell and Bert Hubbell Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are art exhibitions, and then there are exhibitions that feel like uncovering something that was never meant to stay hidden. Brothers in Arts: James Hubbell and Bert Hubbell at the Oceanside Museum of Art is firmly the latter.<\/p>\n

\"Brothers<\/p>\n

A Tale of Two Brothers Who Chose Art Over Everything<\/p>\n

James and Bert Hubbell were born in the 1930s, came of age in the shadow of World War II, and each made a radical decision to give their lives over to art. For them, it was a moral and spiritual response to a world that felt unstable and uncertain.<\/p>\n

The paths they took couldn\u2019t have been more different. James planted himself in Southern California, eventually building his own home and studios in Santa Ysabel, weaving together visual art, poetry, and philosophy inspired by the desert, Mexico, and the Pacific.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

Bert, meanwhile, spent more than 50 years near Mt. Fuji in Japan, deeply shaped by Shinto and Animist traditions, as well as Native American art. He described himself as a \u201cprimitive artist\u201d and produced an estimated 28,000 fantastical ceramic earth figures across his lifetime \u2013 never selling a single one.<\/p>\n

Letters Across the Pacific<\/p>\n

Despite the distance, the brothers stayed connected through written correspondence \u2013 letters that wrestled with big questions about art, humanity, and what it means to create in a broken world. You get the sense that these two were each other\u2019s most important intellectual companions, even from opposite ends of the earth.<\/p>\n

The exhibition\u2019s final chapter is especially moving. Near the end of his life in 2024, James encouraged his grandsons to visit their great-uncle during a trip to Japan, only for them to find his home empty and Bert gravely ill in hospital.<\/p>\n

Their last reunion happened over a video call. Neither could speak \u2013 they simply smiled and waved at each other one final time before passing away within weeks of each other.<\/p>\n

What You\u2019ll Find at OMA<\/p>\n

Curated by James\u2019 son Brennan Hubbell, the show brings together James\u2019 watercolors, stained glass, sculpture, and poetry alongside Bert\u2019s ceramic figures. Letters, journals, photographs, and sketches give the whole thing an intimate, deeply human feel.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those exhibitions where the work and the story behind it are completely inseparable \u2013 and both are worth the drive up to Oceanside.<\/p>\n

\"sculptures<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

See you there!<\/p>\n

Brothers in Arts is the kind of show that stays with you well after you\u2019ve left the gallery \u2013 don\u2019t sleep on making the trip to Oceanside this spring.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcc6 On view: Saturday, April 11 \u2013 Sunday, September 6 | Exhibition Celebration: Saturday, May 2
\ud83d\udccd 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside
\ud83c\udf9f\ufe0f Get your tickets here<\/a>
\u2139\ufe0f More info here<\/a><\/p>\n

See you there, San Diego!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are art exhibitions, and then there are exhibitions that feel like uncovering something that was never meant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[91016,71331,93870,71327,74,18099,99810,76,75,8419,18100,85244,39756],"class_list":["post-217669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-art-collection","tag-art-exhibition","tag-art-exhibits","tag-art-museum","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-art-galleries","tag-san-diego-art-scene","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-things-to-do-in-san-diego","tag-things-to-see-in-san-diego","tag-what-to-do-in-san-diego","tag-what-to-see-in-san-diego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}