• Title
  [Portrait of Dorothy Gordon Jenner], 1952 / oil painting by Judy Cassab
• Creator
  Judy Cassab, 1920-2015
• Call number
  ML 1505
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  1952
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Paintings
• Reference code
  9585748
• Physical Description
  1 painting - image 71.0 x 59.0 cm, within frame 92 x 80.5 cm - oil on canvas, framed
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Dorothy Gordon Jenner (1891-1985), also known as 'Andrea', was an influential and popular figure in Australian social, cultural and political life through the 1950s and 1960s. Always immaculately groomed and expensively dressed, this painting records the elegant appearance of the sitter in her prime.
  
  Born on 1 March 1891 in Sydney, Dorothy Hetty Fosbury grew up on a property near Narrabri, NSW. Displaying more interest in singing, dancing and ice-skating than in academic pursuits, she sailed to England where she pursued a lively social life. Recalled to Sydney by her parents, she established a dressmaking business in George Street around 1913, heading to Hollywood in 1915 where she worked as an extra and stuntwoman on film sets. With two short-lived marriages behind her by 1925, the second to advertising writer George Onesiphorus Jenner, she returned to Sydney. In 1927 she accepted a gentleman friend’s offer of a ticket to England. Her impressions of a Spanish bullfight cabled back to the Sydney Sun led to a weekly column under the byline 'Andrea’, chosen from a numerology list. Styling herself as 'the playgirl of the western world’, she continued to write news columns — a mixture of gossip, character sketches, society and royal news, fashion reportage and theatre criticism.
  
  Stranded in Sydney by World War II, accredited as a war correspondent for the Sun in September 1939, Jenner was sent to Singapore where she despatched several stories before being interned in the Stanley prisoner-of-war camp, Hong Kong, in January 1942. Through a diary kept on toilet paper, she recorded military developments and drily profiled her fellow internees. Thin and unwell, Jenner returned to Australia in October 1945. After several newspaper appointments Jenner joined (Sir) Frank Packer’s Daily Telegraph, where she wrote the 'Postscripts’ column. In 1953 she left to write for Truth and Daily Mirror, where she covered society events. She also appeared on an ABC television panel game show and moved into radio in the late 1950s. With her trademark call sign ‘Hello, Mums and Dads’, uttered in a deep resonant voice, a result of rupturing a vocal cord while a prisoner of war and of years of smoking, she dispensed a mixture of worldly wisdom and ‘horse sense’. In the 1960s Jenner was lured to 2GB, where she secured a secretary and a salary of £5000, later hosting an early talk back show. A tireless charity worker she was awarded an OBE in 1968 and died in 1985.
  Reference: Library correspondence file
• Collection history
  This painting was gifted to Judy Cassab's son, Peter Kampfner, on his 21st birthday.
• Scope and Content
  This portrait is an oil on canvas which shows Australian actress, journalist and radio broadcaster Dorothy Gordon Jenner (also known as 'Andrea'), seated holding her right hand to her face.
• Access Conditions
  
  Access via appointment
• Copying Conditions
  Copyright status:: In copyright - Life of creator plus 70 years
  Copyright holder:: Estate of Judy Cassab
  Rights and Restrictions Information:: All commercial use of works by Judy Cassab should be referred to the copyright collecting agency - VISCOPY.
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy Estate of Judy Cassab
• General note
  
  Completed within the first few years of Judy Cassab’s post war immigration to Australia from Europe, this portrait provides evidence of the importance for the artist of securing cultivated friendships in Australia. On 7 September 1952, Cassab (a life-time diarist) recorded ‘I have just finished a portrait of Andres who writes in the Telegraph. She is cosmopolitan, very witty and still very beautiful. She was a prisoner of War in Hong Kong.’ The artist’s diaries further confirm the early professional support rendered by Jenner who promoted Cassab through her column, encouraging potential patrons (including newspaper owner Warwick Fairfax) and setting the example of acquiring her work. This portrait is also highly suggestive of the compatibility between the artist and the sitter who were known to have been close friends.
  
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Inscribed ‘Judy Cassab 1952’ top right hand corner and verso on canvas ‘for Peter 1968'.
• Name
  Andrea (radio announcer)
  
• Subject
  Adult Females
  Portraits, Australian--20th century.
  Women artists--Australia--21st century.
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE13031001

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