Still Life With Teapot
Object numberM2020/011
TitleStill Life With Teapot
Creator Judy Cassab (artist)
DescriptionJudy Cassab, 'Still Life With Teapot', depicting a cup and saucer, tea pot and flowers in a vase on a Hungarian-style table cloth, oil on canvas, signed bottom right, Judy Cassab, 2013.
Cassab is well-known for her talents as a portraitist and significant body of landscapes. She won the Archibald twice, in 1961 and 1963 and has been awarded numerous other awards and honours.
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. 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." Most of her immediate family was murdered in the Holocaust. In 1951, she immigrated to Australia with her husband and two young sons. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1953, anticipating a successful artistic career with over 50 solo exhibitions held in Australia and others in Paris and London.
Early portrait work expanded into still life and landscapes, with the latter informed largely by her time spent in Alice Springs. In this work the Hungarian motif tablecloth references her homeland; perhaps an item brought from one life to the next.
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, she overcame remarkable obstacles to define her place and purpose as an artist: ‘My art work is so intrinsically interwoven in the fabric of my being that I cannot conceive of any sort of existence without it. I pray that I never have to.’
Cassab is well-known for her talents as a portraitist and significant body of landscapes. She won the Archibald twice, in 1961 and 1963 and has been awarded numerous other awards and honours.
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. 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." Most of her immediate family was murdered in the Holocaust. In 1951, she immigrated to Australia with her husband and two young sons. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney in 1953, anticipating a successful artistic career with over 50 solo exhibitions held in Australia and others in Paris and London.
Early portrait work expanded into still life and landscapes, with the latter informed largely by her time spent in Alice Springs. In this work the Hungarian motif tablecloth references her homeland; perhaps an item brought from one life to the next.
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, she overcame remarkable obstacles to define her place and purpose as an artist: ‘My art work is so intrinsically interwoven in the fabric of my being that I cannot conceive of any sort of existence without it. I pray that I never have to.’
Production date 2013 - 2013
Object namepaintings
Dimensions
- width: 460.00 mm
height: 610.00 mm
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Peter Kampfner