Karl Hubbuch (1891-1979) is most often identified with the style known as Neue Sachlichket (New Objectivity). Less openly political than colleagues such as George Grosz and Otto Dix, he practiced nevertheless a realistic style that criticized society through its blunt honesty.

Hubbuch was born in Karlsruhe and attended the Academy there. He later studied at the School of the Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin under Emil Orlik at the same time as G.Grosz. In 1922, he studied again with Orlik in Berlin. In 1924, he began teaching lithography at the Karlsruhe Academy. During the 1920s and early ‘30s, his work was included in numerous exhibitions, among them the 1925 Neue Sachlichkeit show in Mannheim and a group show, with Dix and Grosz, at the Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf in Berlin.

Describing with passion the anomalies of society, his first drawings reveal a precise sense of detail and physiognomy. If he does not participate in the dada movement like many of his contemporaries, the artist nevertheless does use the photomontage. Hubbuch published satirical drawings, and in 1930 he collaborated with Erwin Spuler and Anton Weber in the critical magazine "Zakpo".

Between 1935 and 1945, Hubbuch was forbidden to work as an artist by the Nazi regime, and earned occasional money by painting ceramics and cuckoo clocks. After the war he began exhibiting his work again.