Italian painter (1870–1955)
Dattilo Rubbo in 1906.
Antonio Salvatore Dattilo Rubbo (Napoli 21 June 1870 – Sydney 1 June 1955) was an Italian -born artist and art teacher active in Australia from 1897.[ 1]
Rubbo, or Dattilo-Rubbo, was born in Naples in 1870, and spent his early childhood in the Neapolitan municipality of Frattamaggiore .[ 2] He studied painting under Domenico Morelli and Filippo Palizzi before emigrating to Australia,[ 3]
arriving in Sydney in 1897. From 1898 Rubbo taught in Sydney schools including St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill , Kambala School , The Scots College , Newington College and Homebush Grammar School .[ 1] 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 through his art school (opened in 1898) and his classes at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales .
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 and Cubism . 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 . Other students included Norah Simpson ,[ 4] Frank Hinder , Grace Cossington Smith (whom Dattilo Rubbo referred to affectionately as 'Mrs Van Gogh'), Donald Friend ("Aha Donaldo, always the barocco ; rub it out, boy, rub it out!"), Roy De Maistre , war artist Roy Hodgkinson , Archibald Prize winner Arthur Murch , social realist Roy Dalgarno , Tom Bass ,[ 1] and very probably Muriel Binney .[ 5] In 1924 he helped to found Manly Art Gallery and Historical Collection which holds over one hundred and thirty of his works.[ 1]
When he retired, one of his teaching staff, Giuseppe Fontanelli Bissietta, known as a member of the Six Directions group, took over his "ADR" school in "Century House", 70 Pitt Street, Sydney .[ 6]
He donated to the Municipality of Frattamaggiore 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.[ 7]
See also
References
^ a b c d Oakley, Carmel (1988). "Rubbo, Antonio Salvatore Dattilo (1870 - 1955)" . Australian Dictionary of Biography . Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University . ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7 . ISSN 1833-7538 . OCLC 70677943 . Retrieved 16 September 2008 .
^ Capasso, Sosio (1992). "Frattamaggiore: Storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti" .
^
Susio Capasso (1992). "XV: Dattilo Rubbo — Falqui — Guidetti". Frattamaggiore: storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti . Istituto di studi Atellani.
^ Gray, Anne (7 May 2012). "Norah Simpson: Biography" . Design and Art Australia Online. Retrieved 30 October 2012 .
^ "Muriel Mary Sutherland Binney :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online" . www.daao.org.au . Retrieved 5 October 2023 .
^ "Gallery opened" . The Daily Telegraph . Vol. XIX, no. 92. New South Wales, Australia. 7 July 1954. p. 16. Retrieved 15 October 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^ "Frattamaggiore" . Istituto di Studi Atellani.
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