Artist Mario Dubsky was born in London, England on 14 May 1939 to German-speaking Viennese parents with both Jewish and Slavic roots, who had converted to Christianity. He entered the Slade School of Fine Art at the age of 17 and was mentored by Dorothy Mead, a mature student who had studied with Bomberg and who passed on what Dubsky referred to as ‘Bombergian precepts’. Dubsky's work in this period included energetic charcoals and thickly painted canvases. He also bought some of Bomberg’s work from the artist’s widow, Lilian Holt, which he kept for the rest of his life. Dubsky was also influenced by tutors Robert Medley and Keith Vaughan, the latter befriending him, and his work was included in the British Art Exhibition in Moscow (1959). In 1963 Dubsky went to Rome on an Abbey Major Scholarship which gave him the opportunity to travel widely around Europe, before he returned to London, where his work was included in the New Generation exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1966 and 1968. In 1969 he had his first solo exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery, London and also exhibited at the Galleria Feltrinelli in Rome.
With the aid of a Harkness Fellowship, Dubsky lived in New York from 1969-71, where he embraced his identity as a gay man and, together with John Button, co-created a paint and collage mural at the then-headquarters of the Gay Activists Alliance (later destroyed). Dubsky taught at Wimbledon, Camberwell School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He was artist in residence at the British School in Rome in 1982. His last solo exhibition X Factor at the South London Gallery in 1983 included 'Cabaret Valhalla' (now Tate). Shortly before his death, Dubsky won the Tolly Cobbold Drawing Prize. He died in London, England on 24 August 1985 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery. His work is represented in UK collections including the Arts Council, the Government Art Collection, the Imperial War Museum, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, London Borough of Camden, Tate, and University College London.
