Karl Hubbuch was born in 1891 in Karlsruhe. From 1908 to 1914 he studied art there and in Berlin, with an emphasis on printmaking in the later years. After the First World War he continued studying in both cities. Encouraged by George Grosz, he processed his experiences at the front in his art. In 1925 his works were included in the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) exhibition in Mannheim. After teaching at various other schools, he was appointed a professor at the Landeskunstschule, or State Art School, in Karlsruhe in 1928, and in that same year became a member of the Vereinigung revolutionärer Künstler, the Union of Revolutionary Artists. In 1930 Hubbuch was a co-founder of the critical art journal Zakpo. In 1933, under the National Socialists, he was banned from working and exhibiting. After years of other work, for example as a painter of clock faces and in a majolica factory, in 1948 he became a professor at the Karlsruhe Art Academy, and it was in that city that he died in 1979.
