Antonio Salvatore Dattilo Rubbo (Napoli 21 June 1870 – Sydney 1 June 1955) was an Italian-born

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and art teacher active in Australia from 1897. Rubbo, or Dattilo-Rubbo, was born in Naples in 1870, and spent his early childhood in the Neapolitan municipality of

Frattamaggiore Frattamaggiore (locally also known as Fratta) is a ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania, Italy. It is located north of Naples and southwest of Caserta. It was awarded the title of "City of art" in 2008 and named Benedictine ci ...

. He studied painting under

Domenico Morelli Domenico Morelli (4 August 182313 August 1901) was an Italians, Italian painter, who mainly produced historical and religious works. Morelli was immensely influential in the arts of the second half of the 19th century, both as director of the Ac ...

and

Filippo Palizzi Filippo Palizzi (16 June 1818, Vasto – 11 September 1899, Naples) was an Italian painter, known for his rural genre scenes with animals, mostly goats. His brothers, Francesco Paolo, Giuseppe and Nicola, also became painters. Biography He was ...

before emigrating to Australia, arriving in Sydney in 1897. From 1898 Rubbo taught in Sydney schools including St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill,

Kambala School Kambala is a private school, private Pre-school education, early learning, primary school, primary, and Secondary school, secondary day school, day and Boarding school, boarding school for girls, located in Rose Bay, New South Wales, Australia. ...

The Scots College The Scots College is an independent primary and secondary Day school, day and Boarding school, boarding school for boys, predominantly located in , an Eastern Suburbs (Sydney), eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is affiliat ...

Newington College Newington College is a multi-campus Independent school, independent Uniting Church in Australia, Uniting Church Single-sex education, single-sex and Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school education, early learning, Primary school, primar ...

and

Homebush Grammar School Homebush Grammar School was an independent non-denominational day school for boys located in Albert Road Strathfield, New South Wales. At the time Albert Road was listed as being in Homebush hence the name of the school. History The school was ...

. Dattilo Rubbo was not a great artist – "muddy genre portraits of very wrinkled old Tuscan peasants were his strong suit," according to critic Robert Hughes – but he was an inspiring art teacher, responsible for introducing a whole generation of Australian painters to

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

through his art school (opened in 1898) and his classes at the

Royal Art Society of New South Wales The Royal Art Society of New South Wales, or Royal Art Society of NSW, was established in 1880 as the Art Society of New South Wales by a group of artists including Arthur and George Collingridge, with the aim of creating an Australian school of ...

. In contrast to nearly all other art teachers in Australia at the time, he was not a reactionary, and encouraged his students to experiment with styles as radically different from his own as

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

and

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

. He was a flamboyant character who believed in championing his students to the hilt; indeed, in 1916 he challenged a committee member of the Royal Art Society to a duel because he had refused to hang a post-impressionist landscape by his pupil

Roland Wakelin Roland Wakelin (17 April 1887 – 28 May 1971) was a New Zealand-born Australian painter and teacher. Early life Roland Shakespeare Wakelin was born on 17 April 1887 in Greytown, New Zealand, Greytown, New Zealand. He studied at Wellington Te ...

. Other students included

Norah Simpson Norah Simpson (5 July 1895 – 19 February 1974) was an Australian modernist painter. She grew up in Sydney and is described as "giving impetus to modernism" in Australia: when returning from France in 1913, she brought back a series of rep ...

Frank Hinder Francis Henry Critchley Hinder (26 June 1906 – 31 December 1992) was an Australian painter, sculptor and art teacher who is also known for his camouflage designs in World War II. Early life and education Hinder was the fourth child of Enid ...

Grace Cossington Smith Grace Cossington Smith (20 April 189220 December 1984) was an Visual arts of Australia, Australian artist and pioneer of Modernist art, modernist painting in Australia and was instrumental in introducing Post-Impressionism to her home country. ...

(whom Dattilo Rubbo referred to affectionately as 'Mrs Van Gogh'),

Donald Friend Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (6 February 1915 – 16 August 1989) was an Australian artist and diarist who lived much of his life overseas. He has been the subject of controversy since the posthumous publication of diaries in which he wrote about ...

("Aha Donaldo, always the ''barocco''; rub it out, boy, rub it out!"),

Roy De Maistre Roy De Maistre CBE (27 March 18941 March 1968) was an Australian artist of international fame. He is renowned in Australian art for his early experimentation with "colour-music", and is recognised as the first Australian artist to use pure abs ...

war artist A war artist is an artist either commissioned by a government or publication, or self-motivated, to document first-hand experience of war in any form of illustrative or depictive record.Imperial War Museum (IWM)header phrase, "war shapes lives" ...

Roy Hodgkinson,

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

winner Arthur Murch, social realist Roy Dalgarno, Tom Bass, and very probably Muriel Binney. In 1924 he helped to found Manly Art Gallery and Historical Collection which holds over one hundred and thirty of his works. When he retired, one of his teaching staff, Giuseppe Fontanelli Bissietta, known as a member of the

Six Directions Six Directions was an art collective in Sydney, Australia, formed in 1953 by six post-war immigrants from Europe. They held group exhibitions at Bissietta's Gallery, at 70 Pitt Street, Sydney in 1957 and at the Riverside Gallery, Canberra, in 1958. ...

group, took over his "ADR" school in "Century House", 70

Pitt Street, Sydney Pitt Street is a major street in the Sydney central business district in New South Wales, Australia. The street runs through the entire city centre from Circular Quay in the north to Waterloo, New South Wales, Waterloo, although today's street ...

. He donated to the Municipality of

six of his works, including a self-portrait, on the occasion of the National Painting Exhibition of 1955, also AUD£50 for the purchase of classically inspired paintings for a municipal art gallery to be established. The Municipality awarded him honorary citizenship and a gold medal, which unfortunately arrived after his death.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubbo, Dattilo 1870 births 1955 deaths Australian art educators 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Staff of Newington College 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Australian male painters Italian emigrants to Australia

See also

References