Judy Cassab was born in 1920 in Vienna to Hungarian parents. She died in 2015. She studied in Prague and the Budapest Academy. The harrowing story of her early adult life is told in her autobiography Judy Cassab: Diaries (Alfred A Knopf, 1995) and the biography by Brenda Niall, Judy Cassab: An Australian Story (Allen and Unwin, 2007). Members of Cassab's family perished in Auschwitz and her husband was interned. After his release and their migration to Australia, Cassab’s career as an artist blossomed. She has held many solo exhibitions and won many art prizes and awards. She is one of the few women artists to win an Archibald Prize, and twice – in 1960 for her portrait of the artist Stanislaus Rapotec (1913–97), and in 1967 for a portrait of the artist Margo Lewers (1908–78). Judy Cassab has been commissioned to paint many eminent people and has travelled to England many times to fulfil portrait commissions. Her portraiture style reflects expressionist influences. In 1969 she was appointed as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for service to the visual arts, and in 1988 she was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). After the publication of her diaries, Sydney University conferred upon Cassab the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D Litt).