CASSAB, JUDY (1920-2015)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Obelisk" (1966)
Mixed media
102 x 94cm
Signed lower right
*private collection, Melbourne
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Cassab AO CBE was an acclaimed, award-winning Jewish-Hungarian Australian Artist & Portraitist. She begun studying at the Academy of Art in Prague in 1938 but was forced to flee the German occupation in 1939. Cassab worked in a factory under an assumed name and put her artistic skills to use after hours forging papers and passports. Her husband, Jancsi Kampfner, was put in a forced labour camp by the Nazis in World War II, and returned to Hungary in 1944. Cassab, her husband and two sons emigrated to Australia in 1951 and settled in Sydney. Cassab became an Australian citizen in 1957. In 1960, Cassab became the second woman to win the Archibald Prize, and in 1967 became the first woman to win the Archibald Prize twice!! She was also a prominent award-winner in the Wynne Prize. In her lifetime, Cassab held over 70 solo shows, and her works are represented in all major National Galleries & institutions!! Cassab was made a commander of the British Empire in 1969, then an officer of the Order of Australia in 1988. In 1980 she became only the second female trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW trustee. In 2011 she was awarded Hungary’s Gold Cross of Merit and in the same year she generously donated 400 of her works to small Australian galleries. This impressive oil painting was produced as part of a series of geometric abstract works directly inspired by American Abstract Expressionism, and was exhibited at the Rudy Komon Gallery in 1967.