Kiffy Rubbo

Rubbo was born in Melbourne to artist Ellen Rubbo and professor of microbiology Sydney Dattilo Rubbo. Her mother was a painter regularly exhibiting in New South Wales and Victorian state galleries and her Italian-born grandfather Antonio Dattilo Rubbo was an artist and art teacher who taught in schools including the (Royal) Art Society of New South Wales where he was also a council-member. Her father also had an interest in the arts, especially painting, sculpture and the theatre. Rubbo graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne in 1965.

Rubbo returned to the University of Melbourne in a professional capacity in 1971 appointed as the director of the Rowden White Library and the inaugural director of the Ewing and George Paton Galleries. The 1974 exhibition A Room of One’s Own: Three Women Artists (co-curated with Lynne Cook and Janine Burke) helped initiate the Melbourne women’s art movement, and in the following year Burke commissioned by Rubbo curated the national touring exhibition Australian Women Artists – 1840–1940.

In August 2014 Rubbo's curatorial legacy was celebrated in a symposium hosted Kiffy Rubbo: Curating the 1970's by 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.

Rubbo was married to architect Dennis Carter. They had three children, Bridie, Darcy and Barny.