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WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF MARIO DUBSKY (1939-85) 'Fearless and independent, not bowing to convention' (John Golding on Mario Dubsky, private correspondence, 13th September 2005) Mario Dubsky was born in London in 1939 to Viennese Jewish parentage. He was accepted at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1956 and was the youngest ever artist to be enrolled. Patrick Procktor writes of Dubsky,'he was the young spitfire of the Slade, terrifically confident and devoted to his work, and heavily serious about philosophy and politics. He painted in a more extreme style that came from Bomberg [Bomberg was then an entirely unknown, uncelebrated and isolated figure] with the same loaded brush and breadth but with subjects tending to the expressionist and was one of those students that others learn from as much as from the school itself (Patrick Proctor; Self-Portrait, London, 1991, pp.34-35).' Upon leaving the Slade, Dubsky was awarded the Abbey Major Scholarship in Painting by Keith Vaughan and other committee members. Dubsky blossomed in the 1960s and was duly invited to show his work in the New Generation shows of 1966 and 1968 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Dubsky's work rapidly evolved in the 70s and he began to produce a much darker body of work evolved out of architectonic forms and latterly drawings made from pre-historic bones in the Natural History museum. Of Dubsky's homosexuality, Edward Lucie-Smith writes, ' To remain from expressing it was to remain creatively unsatisfied (from the forward to M.Dubsky, Tom Pilgrim's Progress Among the Consequences of Christianity and Other Drawings, Gay Men's Press, 1981, pp.10-11).' Although certain eminent painters were acknowledged to be gay, aside from Dubsky the only other artist who showed any inclination to force the issue was David Hockney. In Dubsky's Tom Pilgrim drawings (see lots 263 and 264) we see a personal reaction to the prosecution of the newspaper Gay News for blasphemy - a lost legal battle which nevertheless was a turning point in the history of homosexual self-awareness in this country. Dubsky was at the epicentre of the London art scene. Dubsky's friends and contemporaries to name a few were David Hockney, Cecil Beaton and Frank Auerbach. A number of Dubsky's works were exhibited at the South London Art Gallery in 1984 which proved to be a powerful tribute to his life and work. Mario Dubsky died of AIDS in 1985. The proceeds from the Mario Dubsky works will be given to the Terrence Higgins Trust.

Mario Dubsky (1939-1985)

In the Camps III

Details

Mario Dubsky (1939-1985)
In the Camps III
signed and dated 'MARIO/DUBSKY/1957 (on the reverse)
oil on board
28 x 36 in. (71.1 x 91.4 cm.)
Painted between 1956-1957.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, X Factor 1984, London, South London Art Gallery, 1984, p.7, illustrated.

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Lot Essay

The present work was executed in the post war years when Picasso dominated the art scene. As Picasso had been roused by the consequences of war, Dubsky's creative output was 'haunted by memories and images of the War, by Hitler and the Holocaust' (see Exhib. cat. South London Art Gallery, X Factor 1984, 18 May - 21 June 1984, p.7 ). For Dubsky, like many artists at the time, 'Guernica was the Ikon' (ibid. p.7) One can see clear comparisons from the 'comet-like' head of the present work's central figure with Picasso's epic work 'Guernica'. In Picasso's Guernica, a comet-like head of a defenseless female with an outstretched arm holds a beacon over the chaos of destruction.

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