Judy Cassab captured faces of her adopted country with flair and perception
The dual Archibald Prize winner survived the Holocaust and made a new life in Sydney where she became one of our most-loved artists.
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In the 1960s one of the most sought after portrait painters in Australia was a Hungarian immigrant, born in Austria, who had survived the Nazis and fled the Soviets. Originally named Judit Kaszab, she had only arrived in Australia in 1951 but soon adapted to her new home, changing her name to Judy Cassab, establishing herself as an innovative portraitist.
Her portraits show mostly deeply contemplative people, against an abstract, surreal or dreamlike, backgrounds that give clues to the inner world of her sitter. In her long career she painted artists, writers, actors, royalty, politicians, business leaders and singers — her portrait of Dame Joan Sutherland hangs in the Sydney Opera House.
Cassab, who died yesterday, overcame a sometimes bleak past to build a bright career in Australia, capturing faces and landscapes of her adopted home with intelligence, style and perceptiveness.
Born Judit Kaszab in Vienna, Austria in 1920, her parents, Imre and Ilona Kaszab, were Jewish Hungarian immigrants. Neither parent painted, but her father yearned to write, her mother was a musician and several cousins became artists.
Financial problems drove Imre in 1929 to return to Hungary, taking his family with him, to live in Budapest. But Judy’s parents split up and she lived with her mother in Bergszasz, Hungary.
At the age of 12 Judy became determined to be an artist, creating her first portrait, a charcoal of her grandmother. It was soon apparent to her family that Judy had a great creative talent and throughout high school she drew or painted almost every day.
In 1938 while on a trip as part of a debating team she met 36-year-old Janos “Jansci” Kampfner. They married in 1939, but Cassab made Kampfner promise their marriage would not interfere with her career as an artist. Cassab briefly studied art in Prague but Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia was an unwelcome interruption.
After the outbreak of war, in September 1939, in Hungary things became worse for Jewish people. Kampfner was forced out of his job and in 1941 was conscripted to work in a labour camp.
While she waited anxiously for news of her husband, she resumed studies at an art school in Budapest in 1942, leaving her mother and grandmother behind in Bergszasz. She would never see them again — they perished with many of Cassab’s other relatives and friends in Auschwitz.
Kampfner was finally released in 1944 and joined her in Budapest. The art school closed and Cassab stopped painting for the first time since she was 12. She had survived the worst of the Nazi anti-Jewish policies, the bombings and deprivations of the war only to see Hungary come under Soviet domination.
She decided her future would be better outside Europe with the choice was narrowed to Canada or Australia. The couple wrote to both countries and Australia accepted them first.
After time in England, taking commissions from influential people, they headed for Australia in 1951. They spent months living in a cramped boarding house in Bondi, taking what work they could, including a commission to paint the wife of Charles Lloyd Jones, head of David Jones. Eventually they could afford to buy an apartment, allowing Judy to set up a studio and take more commissions.
It was a difficult process of adjustment, in 1952 she suffered illness brought on by repression of wartime trauma but she overcame this dark undercurrent to triumph.
In 1955 she won the Australian Women’s Weekly Portrait Prize with her portrait of model Judy Barraclough. As her reputation grew she mixed with, and became friends with, some of the artworld’s greats, including Trieste-born artist Stanislaus Rapotec, also based in Australia. Her portrait of him won her the 1960 Archibald Prize, the first woman to win since Nora Heysen in 1938.
She won again in 1967 with her portrait of artist Margo Lewers, becoming the first woman to win the Archibald twice. In 1969 she was given a CBE for her services to art and in 1988 she was made an Officer of the order of Australia.
Jancsci died in 2001 but Cassab continued to work. In 2002 she joined artist Charles Blackman in a drawing group, drawing pictures of model Marina Finlay.
A 2013 retrospective of Cassab’s works celebrated the artist while she was still alive.
She is survived by her great body of work and her sons John and Peter.
Originally published as Judy Cassab captured faces of her adopted country with flair and perception
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