DATTILO-RUBBO, ANTONIO (1870-1955)

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"Oriental Dancer" (c.1920)

oil on canvas

103 x 61.5cm

signed lower right

*private collection, Sydney

Dattilo-Rubbo is an underrated Italian-Australian Painter, & Godfather of Modern Art in Australia. . He was born in Naples in 1870, & began his art studies in Rome in 1888. After several years completing military service, he returned to his art studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. In 1897, in company with another Italian artist, sculptor Pietro Porcelli, Dattilo-Rubbo embarked on the steamer Austral bound for Australia. In Sydney, Dattilo-Rubbo opened an art school, first in Hunter St, then in Rowe St, & finally in Bligh St, teaching drawing & painting. As an accomplished artist, his work straddled Impressionism, Post Impressionism & Modernism. But at the time, Australian Impressionism was at it's peak & any other movements shunned by the traditionalists. Within this closed-minded climate, Rubbo, backed by his academic training in Europe, first introduced a whole generation of Australian artists to the burgeoning Modern Art movement. His classes at the Royal Art Society (from 1898) predated all other understanding & tuition of Modern Art in Australia; a couple of decades before Australian women artists, who had left in droves, returned from European study. He first taught our Modern Art pioneers, including Roland Wakelin, Grace Cossington Smith, Frank Hinder, Roy De Maistre, among others, before they expanded their craft in Europe!! He also taught art at a number of private schools, including Newington College. He was naturalised in 1903, & was appointed as a member of the Royal Art Society, & War Memorial Advisory Board, as well as a foundation member of the Manly Art Gallery Collection. He later joined the Society Of Artists. He exhibited widely, & his works are represented in collections across Australia, including the AGNSW and NGA. In 1939, Dattilo-Rubbo, donated 100 of his own artworks, some money & works by other artists to Manly Art Gallery on condition that Manly Council enlarged the gallery to house them.