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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

2023 Annual Appeal

Manners for moderns

The National Portrait Gallery's ever-growing collection tells the remarkable stories of those who have shaped the nation. The generosity of our supporters, donors and members has assisted the Gallery to expand this rich national collection. This year, the Gallery warmly invites you to help us acquire a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE. Depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM, this work exemplifies Cassab's distinctive style – one which, by combining tradition with modernity and elegance, led to commissions from fashion icons in Australia and overseas. Uniting two iconic women, the portrait shows artist and sitter at the height of their careers. We hope you will assist us to bring this important portrait into the collection.

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June Dally-Watkins
June Dally-Watkins, 1959 Judy Cassab AO CBE oil on canvas © Judy Cassab/Copyright Agency, 2023

June Dally-Watkins OAM (1927–2020), model, deportment icon and entrepreneur, grew up on a property at Watsons Creek in the New England district of New South Wales. As a teenager she was noticed on a Tamworth street by a photographer, who encouraged her to move to Sydney to model. She soon booked catwalk shows for David Jones and contracts for Australian Women's Weekly and Woman's Day. In 1950, she established the June Dally-Watkins School, which has since trained countless students in deportment and etiquette in Sydney and Brisbane. The following year she established Australia's first modelling agency. Dally-Watkins died at the age of 92, leaving a lasting legacy not only on the Australian modelling industry, but on the thousands of students to whom she imparted impeccable manners and a knowledge of etiquette.

Judy Cassab AO CBE (1920–2015) created a distinct record of Australian society from 1950s onwards. Born in Vienna, Cassab studied art in Prague and Budapest before adopting false papers and 'going underground' to escape the persecution of Hungarian Jews. After the war, she and her husband reunited and emigrated to Australia in 1951. Within months of arriving in Sydney, she was commissioned by Sir Charles Lloyd Jones to paint a portrait of his wife. In 1960, she won the Archibald Prize for her portrait of her friend, Stanislaus Rapotec; and in 1967, won it again with her painting of artist Margo Lewers. Cassab's work sought to navigate the tension between figuration and abstraction perfecting an expressionist style that captured the subjects' likeness and the spirit of the era.

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Contact us

If you would like talk further about supporting the 2023 Annual Appeal, please contact:

Tazmin Kip
Membership Coordinator
T: 02 6102 7022

See portraits previously acquired through the Annual Appeals.

© National Portrait Gallery 2023
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency