Rubo, Frants Alekseevich

Born June 5 (17), 1856, in Odessa; died Mar. 13, 1928, in Munich. Russian battle painter.

Rubo attended a drawing school in Odessa (from 1865) and the Academy of Arts in Munich (from 1877). He settled in Germany in 1913, after having lived mainly in St. Petersburg. From 1904 to 1912, Rubo taught at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, where his pupils included M. B. Grekov, M. I. Avilov, and P. I. Kotov.

Working mainly in panorama painting, Rubo produced huge paintings in which historical events were depicted with documentary exactness. His panoramas include The Storming of Akhul’go Aul (1896, not preserved), The Defense of Sevastopol’ (1902–04, Sevastopol’, unveiled in 1905), and The Battle of Borodino (1911, unveiled in Moscow in 1912). Damaged during the siege of Sevastopol’ in the Great Patriotic War, The Defense of Sevastopol’ was re-created by a group of Soviet artists and unveiled in 1954. The Battle of Borodino, which has been restored, was installed in a special building in Moscow in 1962. Rubo also produced easel paintings.