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

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

-born

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

and art teacher active in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

from 1897. Rubbo, or Dattilo-Rubbo, was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

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 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 Accademia di ...

and

Filippo Palizzi Filippo Palizzi (1818 – 1899) was an Italian painter. Biography Filippo Palizzi was born in Vasto (Chieti). He moved to Naples in 1837 and enrolled at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts, but withdrew after a few months to attend the private sch ...

before emigrating to Australia, arriving in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1897. From 1898 Rubbo taught in Sydney schools including St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill,

Kambala School , motto_translation = Let the Sun be your Witness , established = , type = Independent single-sex early learning, primary, and secondary day and boarding school , denomination = Anglican , gender ...

The Scots College , motto_translation = O that we may be worthy of our forefathers , location = Bellevue Hill, Eastern Suburbs, Sydney , country = Australia , type = Independent single-sex primary a ...

and

Newington College , motto_translation = To Faith Add Knowledge , location = Inner West and Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = A ...

. 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 is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

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 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 ag ...

and

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. 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. He studied at Wellington Technical School from 190 ...

. 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,

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 of sex ...

("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

Roy Hodgkinson Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin. In Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' (modern ''roi''), likewise gave rise to ...

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 :'' Not to be confused with the 19th-century illustrator Arthur Murch (illustrator)''. Arthur James Murch (8 July 1902, Croydon (Sydney) – 3 September 1989, Avalon (Sydney)) was an Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 1949 with ...

, social realist

Roy Dalgarno Frederick Leslie Roy Dalgarno (2 December 1910 – 1 February 2001) was an Australian social realist artist. Early life, education and training Born in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia) in 1910, Dalgarno was educated at Ballarat Grammar School. Fro ...

, Tom Bass, and more. 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, although today's street is in two disjointed sect ...

References

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

See also

References