Kiffy Rubbo

Rubbo was born in Melbourne 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 (b1938).{{Cite web|url=https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/how-brothers-mark-and-michael-rubbo-have-spurred-each-anothers-creative-careers-20180111-h0gzam.html|title=How brothers Mark and Michael Rubbo have spurred each other's creative careers|last=Coslovich|first=Gabriella|date=2018-01-26|website=The Sydney Morning Herald|language=en|access-date=2019-05-06}} 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 and the Victorian state galleries. Her father also had an interest in the arts, especially painting, sculpture and the theatre.{{Cite web|last=Rasmussen|first=Carolyn|date=2002|title=Rubbo, Sydney Dattilo (1911–1969)|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rubbo-sydney-dattilo-11578|website=Australian Dictionary of Biography}} 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.{{cite web|last=Oakley |first=Carmel |url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rubbo-antonio-salvatore-dattilo-8291 |title=Biography – Antonio Salvatore Dattilo Rubbo – Australian Dictionary of Biography |publisher=Adb.anu.edu.au |date=1955-06-01 |access-date=2017-08-25}} While a teenager, Rubbo studied drama in New York.{{Cite journal|last=Davies|first=Suzanne|date=1981–82|title=Kiffy Rubbo: Some Recollections|journal=Lip|pages=88–89}} Rubbo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne in 1965.{{Cite book|url=https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/23413/108892_UMC1966-6718_Degrees%20and%20Diplomas%20Conferred.pdf?sequence=19&isAllowed=y|title=University of Melbourne Calendar 1967-1968|publisher=University of Melbourne|year=1968|location=Melbourne|pages=722|chapter=Degrees and Diplomas Conferred 1965}}

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 University of Melbourne. She filled the role of Gallery Director until 1979 when she took a career break.{{Cite book|last=Lindsey|first=Frances|title=Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 1970s|publisher=Scribe|year=2016|isbn=978-1-925307-86-3|pages=9–17|chapter=Leadership and Legacy}}

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 publication, naming it the Art Almanac under which name it continues.{{Citation | author1=Vivian, Helen, (editor.) | author2=Ewing and George Paton Galleries | author3=George Paton Gallery, (issuing body.) | author4=Ewing Gallery, (issuing body.) | author5=Melbourne University Student Union | title=When you think about art : the Ewing and George Paton Galleries, 1971-2008 | date=2008 | publisher=Macmillan Art | isbn=978-1-921394-02-7 }}

The 1974 exhibition A Room of One’s Own: Three Women Artists, which Rubbo co-curated with Lynne Cook and Janine Burke, helped initiate the Melbourne Women's Art Movement. The following year, Rubbo commissioned Burke to curate the national touring exhibition Australian Women Artists 1840–1940.{{Cite web|title=Literary Awards|url=http://www.literaryawards.com.au/victorianpremiers.html}}{{cite web|date=2017-06-26|title=Kiffy Rubbo, National Portrait Gallery|url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/people/kiffy-rubbo-1944|access-date=2017-08-25|publisher=Portrait.gov.au}} The gallery hosted international feminist art critic, Lucy Lippard, who delivered a talk to a women-only audience. Melbourne's Women's Art Forum and Women's Art Register were subsequently established in the gallery.{{Cite web|url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/people/meredith-rogers-1951|title=Meredith Rogers 1951-|website=National Portrait Gallery}}{{Cite book|title=When You Think About Art: The Ewing and George Paton Galleries 1971–2008|publisher=Macmillan Art|year=2008|isbn=978-1921394027|editor-last=Vivian|editor-first=Helen}}Anne Sanders, 'Visual Arts', The Encyclopaedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Published by the Australian Women's Archives Project 2014, {{ISBN|978-0-7340-4873-8}}, http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0448b.htm, accessed 21 January 2018.

In 1975, the gallery hosted Stelarc'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.{{Cite journal|date=1981–82|title=Kiffy Rubbo: Some Recollections|journal=LIP|pages=88–94}} 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, founding director of the Victorian College of the Arts Gallery and Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne.{{cite web|url=http://newsroom.melbourne.edu/news/kiffy-rubbo-curating-70s|title=Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 70s | The Melbourne Newsroom|date=2014-08-29|publisher=Newsroom.melbourne.edu|access-date=2017-08-25}} The papers from the symposium were edited by Janine Burke and Helen Hughes and published in 2016.{{Citation |author1= |title=Kiffy Rubbo : Curating the 1970s |date=2016 |editor-last=Burke |editor-first=Janine |editor-last2=Hughes |editor-first2=Helen |publisher=Scribe Publications |isbn=9781925321395 |author2= |author3= |author4=}}

Rubbo was married to architect Dennis Carter. They had two children, Bridie, and Barny.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/meet/bridie-carter-on-growing-up-in-north-melbourne/|title=Bridie Carter on growing up in North Melbourne|last=Harris|first=Sarah|date=23 September 2015|website=The Weekly Review}} In 1980, at 36 years old, Rubbo committed suicide.{{Cite web|url=https://www.who.com.au/bridie-carter-talks-about-mothers-suicide|title=Bridie Carter tells: The heartbreaking truth about my family tragedy|website=Who|language=en-us|access-date=2020-03-15}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://umsu.unimelb.edu.au/studentlife/gallery/archives/ George Paton Gallery full program of exhibitions and events dating 1971– current]
• [http://gallery.its.unimelb.edu.au/imu/imu.php?request=load&irn=112327&ecatalogue=on&view=details University of Melbourne George Paton Gallery collection, University of Melbourne Archives (1990.0144) dating 1971–1990]
• {{Cite news|title=In debt to Kiffy Rubbo|last=Eagle|first=Mary|date=10 November 1980|work=The Age}}
• [http://www.womensartregister.org Women's Art Register] website
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20241220075514/https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/kiffy-rubbo-1944 National Portrait Gallery]

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Category:1944 births

Category:1980 deaths

Category:Suicides in Australia

Category:University of Melbourne alumni

Category:Australian people of Italian descent

Category:Australian women curators

Category:1980 suicides

Category:Women's Art Register artists