Kristin "Kiffy" Dattilo Rubbo (1944–1980) was an Australian gallery director and curator.

Early life and education

Rubbo was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

to artist Ellen Rubbo and professor of microbiology Sydney Dattilo Rubbo. She had three siblings, academic architect Anna Rubbo, bookseller Mark Rubbo (b1948) and artist and filmmaker

Michael Rubbo Michael Dattilo Rubbo (born 31 December 1938) is an Australian documentarian/filmmaker. Early life Rubbo was born in Melbourne, the son of Australian microbiologist Sydney Dattilo Rubbo, and the grandson of the painter Antonio Dattilo Rubbo. ...

(b1938). Rubbo's family had strong connections to the arts. Her mother was a painter, and regularly exhibited in the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

and the Victorian state galleries. Her father also had an interest in the arts, especially painting, sculpture and the theatre. Her Italian-born grandfather Antonio Dattilo Rubbo was an artist and well-known art teacher. He taught at the (Royal) Art Society of New South Wales where he was also a council-member. While a teenager, Rubbo studied drama in New York. Rubbo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

in 1965.

Career

In 1971, Rubbo was appointed as Director of the Student Union's Rowden White Library. Shortly thereafter she became the inaugural Director of the Ewing and George Paton Galleries at the

. She filled the role of Gallery Director until 1979 when she took a career break. The George Paton Gallery was the first funded art space dedicated to contemporary art in Australia. Under Rubbo's leadership, the gallery hosted and supported an array of leading experimental, activist and community-based exhibitions and events. Highlights include: In 1972, the inaugural Bubbles event at the gallery hosted three-thousand children for school holiday creative workshops. Frances Lindsay describes the initiative as "a pioneer program in Australian galleries and museums for the active and educative engagement of young people". With Meredith Rogers, the gallery's assistant director, in 1974 Rubbo began producing a regular listing of Melbourne gallery shows as an informal

mimeographed A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the proce ...

publication, naming it the ''Art Almanac'' under which name it continues. The 1974 exhibition ''A Room of One’s Own: Three Women Artists'', which Rubbo co-curated with Lynne Cook and

Janine Burke Janine Burke is an Australian author, art historian, biographer, photographer and novelist. She also curates exhibitions of historical and contemporary art. She is Honorary Senior Fellow, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne. ...

, helped initiate the Melbourne

Women's Art Movement The Women's Art Movement (WAM) was an Australian feminist art movement, founded in Sydney in 1974, Melbourne in 1974, and Adelaide in 1976 (as the Women's Art Group, or WAG). Background Such movements had already been created in other countries ...

. The following year, Rubbo commissioned Burke to curate the national touring exhibition ''Australian Women Artists 1840–1940''. The gallery hosted international feminist art critic,

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

, who delivered a talk to a women-only audience. Melbourne's Women's Art Forum and

Women's Art Register The Women’s Art Register is Australia's living archive of women's art practice (cis and trans inclusive or gender diverse). It is a national artist-run, not-for-profit community and resource in Melbourne, Australia. Foundation The Women's Art ...

were subsequently established in the gallery. In 1975, the gallery hosted

Stelarc Stelarc (born Στέλιος Αρκαδίου ''Stelios Arcadiou'' in Limassol in 1946; legally changed his name in 1972) is a Cyprus-born Australian performance artist raised in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, whose works focus heavily on ex ...

's ''Insert/Imprint/Extend: event for amplified, modified, monitored man''. The exhibition involved Stelarc being continuously physically present in the gallery for 10 days. His bodily sounds including his heart, lungs and muscle movements were recorded and amplified. Following Rubbo's death, ''Lip'' feminist art magazine published recollections on her life. Meredith Rogers, Suzanne Davies, Janine Burke and Judy Annear penned contributions. Rogers was Associate Director at the gallery from 1975 to the start of 1979. Her text describes Rubbo's uniquely collaborative and anti-hierarchical working manner, which was conversational, personal, emotional and feminist. In August 2014, Rubbo's curatorial legacy was celebrated in a symposium ''Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 1970's'' organised by Janine Burke at the University of Melbourne. The keynote lecture, ''Kiffy Rubbo, Women Curators and Australian Art Galleries'', delivered by Frances Lindsay, former Deputy Director,

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, founding director of the Victorian College of the Arts Gallery and Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. The papers from the symposium were edited by Janine Burke and Helen Hughes and published in 2016.

Personal life

Rubbo was married to architect Dennis Carter. They had two children,

Bridie A bridie or Forfar bridie is a Scottish meat pasty that originates from Forfar, Scotland. History and preparation Bridies are said "to have been 'invented' by a Forfar baker in the 1850s".Gow, Rosalie. ''Modern Ways with Traditional Scottish ...

, and Barny. In 1980, at 36 years old, Rubbo committed suicide.

References

External links

George Paton Gallery full program of exhibitions and events dating 1971– currentUniversity of Melbourne George Paton Gallery collection, University of Melbourne Archives (1990.0144) dating 1971–1990
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Women's Art Register
website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rubbo, Kiffy 1944 births 1980 deaths Suicides in Australia University of Melbourne alumni University of Melbourne women Australian people of Italian descent Australian women curators 1980 suicides