Antonio Dattilo Rubbo

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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

The Scots College and Newington College.[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

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

  • Art of Australia

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 1833-7538
    . Retrieved 16 September 2008.
  2. ^ Capasso, Sosio (1992). "Frattamaggiore: Storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti".
  3. ^ Susio Capasso (1992). "XV: Dattilo Rubbo — Falqui — Guidetti". Frattamaggiore: storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti. Istituto di studi Atellani.
  4. ^ Gray, Anne (7 May 2012). "Norah Simpson: Biography". Design and Art Australia Online. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  5. ^ "Muriel Mary Sutherland Binney :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online". www.daao.org.au. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ "Frattamaggiore". Istituto di Studi Atellani.
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