Portrait painter who later switched to abstract work. Rubbra was born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. His father was the composer Edmund Rubbra, and his mother was a violinist. His maternal great-grandfather was the well-known Victorian artist Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825-1891). Benedict studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and after he spent ten years teaching perspective and life drawing at High Wycombe art school and at various schools in Oxford. Over the years he was commissioned to paint more than 200 portraits, including one of Prince Charles in 1983. He was particularly sought after for child portraits and wrote instructional books on portraiture, including Painting Children in 1992.

His move to abstract painting was inspired by the unusual backgrounds he created for his sitters and eventually, he became more interested in these background images going on to paint it is believed perhaps 2000 abstract images. Rubbra staged his first solo show at the Woodstock Gallery in London 1965 where the Contemporary Art Society purchased his Composition II the following year. Another exhibition was held in 1991 at the Barbican Gallery in 1991 and the County Museum in Aylesbury held a retrospective in 1998.