Nicola Rubino


Nicola Rubino was an Italian sculptor and painter.
at the court of Frederick II

Biography

He was the son of Francesco and Caterina Cudia and attended the Classical Lyceum in his town. In 1925, aged only 20, he moved to Rome to study at Accademia di Belle Arti together with different artists of Scuola romana like Mafai, Omiccioli, Fazzini and Gentilizi; in Rome he had a close friendship with artists and intellectualis like Sarra, Guttuso and Fellini.
Nicola Rubino was an exponent of the artistic cultural current called "Scuola romana" and of the international sculpture of the 20th century. His works, besides being present in various Italian cities, are exhibited in museums and private collections in Italy and abroad; a valuable collection is kept and exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alcamo, inside the l'ex Collegio dei Gesuiti.
His very rich artistic production, from the second half of the 1920s to the beginning of the 1980s, was created inside his study in via Margutta. He liked female figures, that also come back in his paintings realized by Rubino in the last period of his activity, in which he uses a symbolical natural style.
In 1942 he took part in the fourth Rome Quadriennale and in 1948 into the Rassegna d'arte figurativa of Rome. In 1952 he took part in the fifth Rome Quadriennale and in the XXVI Venice Biennale and his works were then exhibited in foreign countries, among which there were Greece, Turkey and Egypt.
Between 1953 and 1959 he participated at the Mostra d'arte del Mezzogiorno of Rome, Naples where he is assigned the prize Salvator Rosa, and then at the International Medal Exhibition. In 1953 they assigned him one of the ten prizes at the contest for the monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner. He took part in the Venice Biennale in 1954 and he set up a retrospective of medals and exhibited four works at the Rome Quadriennale.
He also works for private customers, and as a teacher at Scuole Media and Liceo artistico in Rome.
In 1956 the Ministry of Transport commissioned him the portal, in Istrian stone, for the Venezia Santa Lucia railway station. In this bas-Relief, six metres high and five large, Rubino has represented instraight lines, the history of Venice through the most important events: the discovery of Saint Mark's corpse, the Republic of Venice, the conquest of Costantinople, the Battle of Lepanto and the Crusades. In 1958 Rubino participated in the Premio Internazionale Città di Carrara and, in 1959, at the International Medal Exhibition at the Mint of Bruxelles.
In the same year he won a contest proclaimed by the Province of Rome and realized a bronze bas-relief for the Technical School "Maffeo Pantaleoni" of Rome.
In 1961 he made the bronze bas-reliefs for the 18th century Porta Palermo in Alcamo, which were commissioned him by the former Lord Mayor Ludovico Corrao and representing "The poet Cielo d'Alcamo at the court of Federico II" and "Active life of Alcamo".
In 1963 he took part in the Exposition of Figurative Arts of Rome and Lazio and, with two of his works, at the Contest Exhibition of Figurative Arts of INPS ; besides he realized fifteen medals that he showed at the "International Exhibition of contemporary religious medal" and five medals at the "Exposicion de la medalla actual" of Madrid.
Between 1964 and 1973 Rubino won 5 competitions and realized the bronze and marble bas-reliefs for the buildings of Lecce, Campobasso, EUR, Rome, Syracuse and Cuneo. The bas-relief at the Inps of Rome represents an idealized vision of work: you can see rural and handcraft life, with a proletarian family in the middle: Rubino wants to intend work as unity and social redemption of it.
In 1965 he participated, with 5 works, at the IX Rome Quadriennale and exhibited in Paris, nine medals at the Exposition "La medalle italienne à la Monnale de Paris". Two years later he presented nine medals at the Exhibition of French, Italian and Spanish Medal in Rome.
Then his works were exhibited in Rome in 1972, as a retrospective at the gallery Il Camino, and in 1973 at the Club Internazionale dell'Antiquariato. In 1977 Nicola Rubino showed his pictures, in his first painting retrospective, at the Gallery "San Marco" of Rome.
After his death in Rome, his wife and two children ordered that some of his works were donated to the municipality of Alcamo, with the obligation of allocating them in the museum inside the Castle of the Counts of Modica; as a whole, la collezione è composta, oltre a 10 tele, di 27 opere, tra gessi e bronzi,the collection is made up, apart 10 paintings, of 27 works created between the 1950s and 1960s, and testify how Nicola Rubino always tried the naturalness of shape, of movement: the "dancer”, the “Woman combing herself”, the Pharao’s bather”, the “Mother with a child” are some examples of this.
There are also the allegorical figures: "Justice", "Lady Luck", "Woman with a dove" , "The winged horse", and finally, the religious themes, like "Mater Ecclesiae" and the " Stations of the Cross" with four figures.
In 1999 they entitled the Exhibition Room of Centro Congressi Marconi of Alcamo to Nicola Rubino, and on 20 April 2007 they inaugurated the plaster casts gallery, dedicated to the sculptor, inside the Castle of the Counts of Modica di Alcamo, later moved to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Alcamo at the ex Collegio dei Gesuiti.

Rubino's sculpture and painting

His works are characterized by an elegant and linear style; Rubino, in the realization of his sculptures, utilized different materials: plaster, bronze, marble or clay that he was able to model in an admirable way, giving shape to figures which recall the classical world and above all, the hellenic one.
As the scholar Gioacchino Aldo Ruggieri affirms, Nicola Rubino can be defined a neoclassical artist because his vision of art is a search for an accomplished beauty, like the one expressed by Canova or Foscolo.
There is a tight correlation between his sculpture and his painting: according to Franco Miele, Rubino reveals the same ability in modelling a statue or using colour; he is able to express everything with a linear simplicity in both things.
His works are exhibited in some galleries, and in several private collections too.

Works

Some of his works, realized between the 1950s and 1960s, are exhibited in the plaster cast gallery at the ex Collegio dei Gesuiti in Alcamo; these are the most important:
Dancer, marble