Judy Cassab AO CBE created her first portrait when she was 12, and later said painting ‘was the only thing in life I wanted to do’. Her studies at the Academy of Art in Prague ended when war broke out in 1939; she later resumed her studies in Budapest before adopting false papers and ‘going underground’ to escape the persecution of Jews. When she began painting again, in 1945, she wrote that she’d ‘never let this happen again, this parting from paint and brush’. Cassab began securing portrait commissions soon after arriving in Sydney with her husband and two sons in 1951. In 1955, her portrait of model Judy Barraclough won the Australian Women’s Weekly Portrait Prize. The win helped establish Cassab’s reputation for portraits that were distinctly modern yet sufficiently traditional, leading to further portraits of sitters from the fashion world – including June Dally-Watkins OAM (1927–2020). Dally-Watkins rose to prominence in the late 1940s with her modelling work for David Jones and magazines including the Women’s Weekly. In 1950 she founded the June Dally-Watkins School for deportment and etiquette, and in 1951 established Australia’s first modelling agency.
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal 2023
© Judy Cassab/Copyright Agency, 2023
The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the
Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a
Reproduction request. For further information please contact
NPG Copyright.
