Antonio Rubino was an Italian illustrator born in 1880. He is best known for his illustrations in children's magazines and books using a unique style to help children understand concepts without words. Some of his most famous works included illustrations for the Corriere dei Piccoli magazine from 1908 to 1927 and the book series La Scuola dei Giocattoli in 1922 which taught children through pictures and humor. Rubino had a long and prolific career illustrating hundreds of works until his death in 1964.

1. “ Between a million works of art
you can confuse more important
painters, remain uncertain about
the others, but a work by Rubino,
the most complicated or the
simplest one, stands out among
all, at a glance.”
Rino Albertarelli
ANTONIO
RUBINO
DIRE FARE SCOPRIRE s.r.l.
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2. Antonio Rubino is born in Sanremo on 15th May
1880.
He is a blond and sickly child. His passions are
thumbing through picture books and running
through the countryside looking for weird things.
We know more about his artistic life than his private
life.
In 1903 he graduates in Law, he tries his academic
way in Turin, where he makes friends with several
people of the cultural city world.
His juridical career turns into a literary and then
artistic career.
Antonio Rubino is self-educated, he signs his first
drawings with the strange nickname Gônramâka,
combined with the Caucasian swastika, that he will
keep in his drawings until 1905.
Rubino is not inspired by his past works but he
mostly illustrates his novels and poems, without
forgetting the main figures of his time.
Some personalities of the cultural Turin scene ask
him to draw their Ex Libris and Rubino creates the
drawings, unique and quite original both in the
design and the technique .
LIFE The word “school”, is often
synonym of punishment
for the child.
Scuola dei Giocattoli
includes:
Belle Lettere (illustrated
syllabary to learn reading
without effort),
Numeretta
(very pretty illustrated aba-
cus),
“O di Giotto”
(nomenclature of familiar
objects in pictures), “Bestie per Bene”
(very comic representation of domestic and wild animals
world), ”Io asino primo” (educational story) and
“Re Bifè” (delicious fairy tale).
On the other hand, one of the most characteristic quali-
ties of Rubinian art has always been the ability to make
even abstract things concrete, to make visible what is
not visible.
The characteristic of Rubino, is to focus on the idea that
SHOWING HELPS TO UNDERSTAND.
Rubino decides to tell all his figures in a “book without
words” that achieves a wide success among the youngest
readers, “because everyone was able to read what he
wanted” a book that made fun of the adults, who, “ since
they lack imagination can read only written words”.

3. IL CORRIERE DEI PICCOLI
1908 is an important year for Rubino: he is invited by
Silvio Spaventa Filippi to collaborate to the creation of
the Corriere dei Piccoli, marking it with his stylistic
imprint, so that he will always be seen as the one of the
Corriere dei Piccoli. For the weekly magazine the artist
invents a wide variety of original characters: Pierino,
Quadratino, Barbabucco, Lillo e Lalla, Caro e Cora, Pino e
Pina, Polidoro, Luca Takko, Abetino, Italino and many
others. From 1st January 1927 Rubino stops the collabo-
ration with Corriere dei Piccoli.
LA SCUOLA DEI GIOCATTOLI
Can we learn by having
fun and grow up playing?
I n 1 9 2 2 t h e I t a l ia n
Publishing Institute publishes
La Scuola dei Giocattoli , a se-
ries of colour comic books
written and illustrated by
Antonio Rubino.
The desire of the Italian
Publishing Institute is to
address even the very young
readers, that is children from
4 to 9 years, applying the principle of
“teaching by having fun” and “ letting children play and
learn“.
In 1906 he marries Angiola Lissoni and they have
their first son Mario. Rubino illustrates many music
sheets, in particular for the publisher Puccio in
Milan.
The following year he starts to collaborate with
many Italian magazines, including “ Il Secolo XIX”.
In 1908 Leopolda (or Titina) is born, later Michele,
who will follow the footsteps of his father as a
drawer and graphic, and finally Dante, his last son.
In the afternoon of the 1st July 1964, while Rubino
is on vacation, he goes out to take pictures to use
in a book he is writing.
After a night of researches he is found dead near a
creek holding his camera.
In an article an anonymous reporter writes a tribute
to the artist: “We have learnt how to read more on
Rubino's colour drawings than in the syllabary”.

4. COLLABORATIONS
For the editor Bemporad of Florence Rubino signs from
1907 to 1911 the stunning covers of Giornalino della
Domenica which arouse the interest of the young read-
ers.
The weekly magazine Attualità promotes Rubino’s new
book with a review and a beautiful white-and-black por-
trait of Rubino on the cover.
1912 is another important year for Rubino, it marks the
beginning of the collaboration with young Arnoldo
Mondadori, who appoints him for the project of a children
book collection based on some works by a couple of
contemporary writers.
This is the beginning of La Bibliotechina della Lampada
with Il Piccolo Viandante, (The Little Wayfarer) written
by Tomaso Monicelli and illustrated by Rubino.
In 1920 comes out “Viperetta”, the most beloved and
reprinted book by Rubino. Despite the amount of work,
Rubino keeps asking his publishers to illustrate new
works but most of all he wants to be able to publish
some of his works still unknown to the public.
In 1928 Rubino asks Mondadori for part of his remunera-
tion twice, the editor refuses and in the same year he
announces that he has started to illustrate maths and
geography with more than 80 drawings for a book for
Italian Schools abroad.
In 1934, he is the director of Topolino, Albi d’Oro, I Tre
Porcellini and Paperino for Mondadori, for this reason he
also draws the covers, adjusting his style to the one of
Disney originals.
Rubino tests the possibility to animate his drawings
taking the role of film director.
In 1941 he directs Il paese dei ranocchi, a short film
which is rewarded with a prize at the Mostra del Cinema
of Venice in 1942, I Tre Porcellini e Paperino.
Rubino’s idea is that a comic strip may let children
identify themselves up to the point to arouse a state of
alienation in them and a double personality.
On the 8th September 1946 Rubino communicates to his
older friend Guglielmo Emanuel, who is the director of
the newspaper Corriere della Sera, the death of his son
Marius by a heart attack. This event causes in him an
editorial crisis that leaves him without a job so that he
can devote time to write the verse novel Il Mistero del
Tempo, which doesn’t bring him immediate economic
success.
In 1945 the Corriere della Sera dismisses Rubino,
accusing him of being unloyal to his collaborators,
switching to a rival newspaper. This doesn’t let Rubino
down so that he sends a letter to publisher Marzocco,
asking him if he has ever thought of publishing his
works and he proposes him to reprint Collegio,
communicating him to have a work for adults ready as
well as a lot of others.
In 1962 Rubino addresses Mondadori to tell him that he
wants to edit and colour his work, which is supposed to
be a real success. But the old publisher, talking to him
informally for the first time, doesn’t accept his proposal.
The following year the artist insists again by Mondadori;
at the last refusal to publish his works Rubino finally
ends up the difficult relationship with the publisher.