Mario Dubsky

The grave of Mario Dubsky, Highgate Cemetery

Mario Dubsky (1939 - 1985) was an artist born in London to Viennese Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity.[1]

Accepted at the Slade School of Fine Art at the unusually young age of 17, Dubsky's early work was influenced by the work of the Anglo-Jewish artist David Bomberg, a Slade School alumnus of 40 years earlier.[2] Dubsky was included in the New Generation show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1966 and 1968. Awarded a Harkness Fellowship he traveled to New York, where he lived from 1969 until 1971 In New York, Dubsky and John Button co-created a large mural[3] in paint and collage at the then-headquarters of the Gay Activists Alliance. The mural was lost in the arson attack that destroyed the building.

In the late 1960s, Dubsky developed a more abstract colour field manner of painting with figuration, as in the large-scale Laocconese[4] of 1968 at University College London named after the classical sculpture, the Laocoon.

From the 1970s, Dubsky liked to sketched prehistoric bone and skeleton forms at the Natural History Museum[1][5] and returned to expressionist figuration. His last solo exhibition X Factor at South London Gallery in 1983 contained Cabaret Valhalla[6] now held by the Tate Gallery. His poems and illustrations in Tom Pilgrim's Progress Among The Consequences of Christianity, London, 1981.[7] with an introduction by Edward Lucie-Smith, was claimed by the artist as his angry response to the 1977 Blasphemy Trial of Gay News.[8]

Dubsky died on 4 August 1985 following a period of illness caused by HIV infection[1] and is buried in the eastern section of Highgate Cemetery alongside the main west path.

Dubsky's work is held in a number of public collections.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Mario Dubsky". Oxforddnb.com. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  2. ↑ Patrick Proctor; Self-Portrait, London, 1991, pp.34-35 ISBN 0297811665
  3. ↑ Rich Wandel, Photo of Agit-Prop Photo Montage Mural by Mario Dubsky and John Button, 1971, 2.4m x 10m, National Archives of Lesbian and Gay History, New York.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ X Factor, Exhibition Catalogue, intro by Peter de Francia, South London Art Gallery, London, May 1984, p.20
  6. ↑ "'Cabaret Valhalla', Mario Dubsky". Tate. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  7. ↑ Gay Men's Press London 1981, ISN 0907040098
  8. ↑ X Factor, Exhibition Catalogue, South London Art Gallery, London, May 1984 pp.26-30
  9. ↑ "Watch a slideshow of 12 paintings by Mario Dubsky". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
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