The Morning Paper

Painting by Australian artist Judy Cassab of her husband Jansci Kampfner reading the morning paper. One of the country’s most respected female artists, she was well-known for her talents as a portraitist, but also painted a significant body of landscapes. She won the Archibald twice, in 1961 and 1963 and has been awarded numerous other awards and honours.

Judy Cassab was born Judit Kaszab in 1920 in Vienna, Austria. She was raised by her mother and grandmother in Beregszasz, Hungary, where she studied art. Judy painted her first portrait at the age of 12 and penned diaries which were later published as a book. She studied art in Prague and at the Budapest Academy, but her studies were disrupted by Nazi occupation and her subsequent time in hiding. 'It was the first time in my life that I was not a girl, not a woman, not a human being, but a Jew', she wrote. Most of Judy’s immediate family perished in the Holocaust. In 1951, she migrated to Australia with her husband and two young sons. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1953.

This portrait of Judy’s husband, Jancsi Kampfner, was an Archibald entrant in 1989. She would go on to refine her craft into her early nineties. Painting for pleasure, her work was left complete, but not overworked or ‘finished’; she often added last minute touches described as the ‘vital marks which somehow pin one’s soul to the canvas’. Imbuing her portraits with an interpretive dimension, a specific element of her paintings were the subject’s eyes, which were always her starting point. She referenced this in her diaries, noting, ‘It’s a magic moment when the eyes come alive and look back at me.’

Judy Cassab died in November 2015, leaving behind a significant body of work, exhibited both in Australia and internationally. As a migrant and as a woman, Cassab overcame remarkable obstacles to define her place and purpose as an artist.