Antonio Dattilo Rubbo

'''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.<ref name=adb>{{Australian Dictionary of Biography |last=Oakley |first=Carmel |year=1988 |id=A110482b |title= Rubbo, Antonio Salvatore Dattilo (1870 - 1955) |accessdate=2008-09-16 }}</ref>

== Early life == Rubbo, or Dattilo-Rubbo, was born in Naples in 1870, and spent his early childhood in the Neapolitan municipality of Frattamaggiore.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yw7AyYUmZkEC&q=antonio+dattilo+rubbo+originario+di+Frattamaggiore&pg=PA83 |title = Frattamaggiore: Storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti|last1 = Capasso|first1 = Sosio|year = 1992}}</ref> He studied painting under Domenico Morelli and Filippo Palizzi and after studying at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Naples, earnt a Diploma of Professor of Drawing in Public Institutions.<ref name=":0" />

Rubbo emigrated to Australia,<ref> {{cite book |title=Frattamaggiore: storia, chiese e monumenti, uomini illustri, documenti |author=Susio Capasso |publisher=Istituto di studi Atellani |year=1992 |chapter=XV: Dattilo Rubbo – Falqui – Guidetti}}</ref> 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.<ref name="adb" />

== Career == 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. He became a major competitor of Julian Ashton's art school movement.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Anthony Dattilo Rubbo, b. 1870 |url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/people/anthony-dattilo-rubbo-1870/ |access-date=2025-11-25 |website=National Portrait Gallery people}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Collerton |first=Emma |url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/downloads/files/AGNSW_Dattilo-Rubbo_catalogue.pdf |title=ANTONIO DATTILO-RUBBO Catalogue |date= |publisher=Art Gallery of New South Wales |year=2011}}</ref> Other students included Norah Simpson,<ref name="Design">{{cite web | url =http://www.daao.org.au/bio/norah-simpson/biography/? | title = Norah Simpson: Biography | last = Gray | first = Anne | publisher = Design and Art Australia Online | date = 7 May 2012 | accessdate = 30 October 2012 }}</ref> 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,<ref name="adb" /> and very probably Muriel Binney.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Muriel Mary Sutherland Binney :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online |url=https://www.daao.org.au/bio/muriel-mary-sutherland-binney/biography/ |access-date=2023-10-05 |website=daao.org.au}}</ref>

In 1924 he helped to found Manly Art Gallery and Historical Collection which holds over one hundred and thirty of his works, with a room in the gallery named in his honour in 1940.<ref name="adb" /><ref name=":2" /> thumb|Official Portrait of John Curtin by Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, 1947 In 1947 Dattilo Rubbo was commissioned to paint the official (posthumous) portrait of Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=John Joseph Ambrose Curtin |url=https://www.aph.gov.au/Visit_Parliament/Art/Stories_and_Histories/HMC/Prime_Ministers/John_Joseph_Ambrose_Curtin |access-date=2025-11-25 |website=Parliament of Australia |language=en-AU}}</ref>

He founded the Dante Aligheri Art and Literary Society, and in 1954 became a life member of the Society of Artists.<ref name=":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.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248932496 |title=Gallery opened |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|location=Sydney |volume=XIX |issue=92 |date=7 July 1954 |accessdate=15 October 2020 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

== Honours == In 1922, the Royal Art Society appointed their first eight Fellows, among them Dattilo-Rubbo, William Lister Lister, Charles Bryant, J. S. Watkins, Lawson Balfour, James R. Jackson, Sir John Langstaff and Margaret Preston.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Morcombe |first=John |date=24 September 2021 |title=Dattilo-Rubbo, the artist who gave so much of his art and heart to Manly |url=https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/manly-daily/dattilorubbo-the-artist-who-gave-so-much-of-his-art-and-heart-to-manly/news-story/7a4600ebabca04c826140cfa064675f4 |work=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref>

A decade later in 1932, Rubbo was honoured with the title Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown of Italy.<ref name=":0" />

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. He also contributed AUD£50 for the purchase of classically inspired paintings for a municipal art gallery to be established. In recognition of his generosity, the Municipality awarded him honorary citizenship and a gold medal, which arrived after his death.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:a6d55e1d-bbbd-43ad-9305-772f714e2227 |title=Frattamaggiore |publisher=Istituto di Studi Atellani}}</ref>

==See also== * Art of Australia

==References== {{reflist}}

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