Judy Cassab (Judit Kaszab) AO CBE was born on 15 August 1920 in Vienna, Austria to Jewish Hungarian parents. She studied at the Academy of Art in Prague in 1938 but was forced to flee the German occupation in 1939, later resuming her studies in Budapest in 1941. Her husband, Jancsi Kampfner (married in 1939), was conscripted to work in a labour camp for three years during the war. Her immediate family members all died in Nazi concentration camps, and Cassab herself managed to evade arrest by posing as her family’s Catholic maid.
Judy Cassab immigrated to Australia in 1950 with her husband and two children, John and Peter, settling in Sydney. An acclaimed portraitist, she won the Archibald Prize twice; once in 1960 for a portrait of Stanislaus Rapotec and again in 1967 for a portrait of Margo Lewers. In 1959 Cassab made the first of many painting trips to central Australia, which inspired a departure from figurative representation to lineal abstraction.
In 1969 she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1988. In 1995 she was awarded a Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) from the University of Sydney. The following year Judy Cassab: Diaries was published, a series of diaries documenting her personal life and professional career spanning the years 1944-1997. Judy Cassab died in 2015, aged 95.
Bitter Springs, NT conveys an abundant and heady Top End scene seemingly abuzz with the noise of insects, or perhaps ablaze with fire.
See featured piece on Judy Cassab's work Ross River Road also in the CDU Art Collection.
