Yesterday the Victorian Artists Society officially opened the VAS Portrait Exhibition 2024 and the Judge, Artist Lee Machelak VAS FVAS, presented the Nada Hunter Portraiture Prizes. The Exhibition features the Nada Hunter Portraiture Prizes of 1st prize, 2nd prize and 3rd prize.

The VAS Portrait Exhibition was judged by Artist Lee Machelak VAS FVAS.

Lee has over 20 years’ experience as a teacher both in Australia and North America. She conducts portrait workshops and demonstrations, judges and undertakes portrait commissions. She has exhibited in Singapore, London, New York and Vancouver.

Nada was born in Donald in 1918 but spent most of her life in Camberwell in Melbourne. She studied for a year at the Teachers College, University of Melbourne and joined the WAAF at the outbreak of WW2 in 1939. Nada was engaged as an intelligence analyst throughout SE Asia, and she continued in this highly secretive work after the war in Intelligence Signals and Communications based at Albert Park.

Nada's paintings are full of spontaneity and her joyous high keyed palette places her firmly in the modernist movement. She was a regular exhibitor with the Victorian Artists Society from 1952 and member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors since 1982. 

*Source: Bridget McDonnell Gallery