John Ernest was an American-born constructivist abstract artist. He was born in Philadelphia, USA, in 1922. After living and working in Sweden and Paris from 1946 to 1951, he moved to London England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 where he lived and worked from 1951. As a mature student at St Martin's School of Art he came under the influence of Victor Pasmore

Victor Pasmore

Edwin John Victor Pasmore was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...

 and other proponents of constructivism

Constructivism (art)

Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

. During the 1950s together with Anthony Hill, Kenneth Martin

Kenneth Martin

Kenneth Martin was an English painter and sculptor who along with his wife Mary Martin and Victor Pasmore was a leading figure in the revival of Constructivism in Britain and America in the 1940s....

, Mary Martin

Mary Martin (Artist)

Mary Adela Martin was a British sculptor best known for her work with her husband Kenneth Martin....

, Stephen Gilbert

Stephen Gilbert

Stephen Gilbert was a British painter and sculptor. He was one of the few British artists to fully embrace the avante garde movement in Paris in the 1950s.-Early years:...

 and Gillian Wise he became a key member of the British constructivist (aka constructionist) art movement.

John Ernest created both reliefs and free standing constructions. Several of his works are held at Tate Britain

Tate Britain

Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank in London, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is the oldest gallery in the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner.-History:It...

, including the Moebius Strip sculpture. He designed both a tower and a large wall relief at the International Union of Architects

International Union of Architects

The International Union of Architects is an international non-governmental organization that represents over a million architects in 124 countries. The UIA was founded in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1948. The General Secretariat is located in Paris...

 congress, South Bank, London, 1961. The exhibition structure also housed works by several of the other British constructivists.

John Ernest had a lifelong fascination with mathematics that is reflected in his work, and together with constructivist artist Anthony Hill he made contributions to graph theory

Graph theory

In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...

, studying crossing numbers

Crossing number (graph theory)

In graph theory, the crossing number cr of a graph G is the lowest number of edge crossings of a planar drawing of the graph G. For instance, a graph is planar if and only if its crossing number is zero.The concept originated in...

 of complete graph

Complete graph

In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete graph is a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge.-Properties:...

s.