Janet Dawson

Janet Dawson (born 1935) is an Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 1973 with the piece Michael Boddy Reading.

She studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne from 1952 to 1956. She was then awarded a Travelling Scholarship to London where she studied printmaking, and went with another scholarship to Italy and later to Paris. She returned to Australia in 1960 and was involved in the colourfield movement, using saturated colors and shaped boards and experimenting with visual illusions. She was included in an exhibition of contemporary Australian painting in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1966.

In 1968 two of Dawson's works were included in the influential art exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 1973 she became the third woman to win the Archibald Prize for her piece Michael Boddy Reading, a portrait of her husband, the actor and playwright Michael Boddy.

She moved to Binalong, New South Wales, in 1974, which inspired an interest in landscape painting.

In 1981 Dawson and her husband moved to Canberra to help establish Theatre ACT. They returned to Binalong in 1985.

She received an Australia Council for the Arts grant in 1985.

Her Red Cabbage series of charcoal and pastel drawings was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1996.