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Eva De Jong-Duldig Eva De Jong-Duldig i(7167614 works by)
Born: Established: 1938
c
Austria,
c
Western Europe, Europe, ;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1940
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BiographyHistory

In 1938, Eva De Jong-Duldig's parents (artist Karl Duldig [1902-1986] and inventor Slawa Horowitz [c.1902-1975]) left Vienna with their infant daughter in the face of the coming war. After a brief period in Switzerland, they settled in Singapore. In 1940, they were declared 'enemy aliens', evacuated to Australia, and interned at Tatura for nearly two years. From there, they eventually settled in Melbourne.

Schooled at Korowa CEGGS, De Jong-Duldig completed a degree in physical education and arts at the University of Melbourne and worked as a teacher before her father, himself a highly ranked tennis player in his youth, encouraged her to take up competitive tennis. In 1961, she reached the quarter finals of Wimbledon. After marrying a Dutch man and moving to the Netherlands, she represented her new country at Wimbledon and in the Federation Cup.

De Jong-Duldig and her family moved back to Australia after the birth of her first child in 1964. The custodian of her parents' artistic legacy after their deaths, she established the Duldig Studio, a not-for-profit public museum and art gallery, in 2002.

In 2017, she published a memoir of her family's history. In 2018, it was longlisted for the Dobbie Award.

Source: Duldig Studio (https://www.duldig.org.au/about-us/).

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Driftwood : Escape and Survival through Art Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2017 13734055 2017 single work autobiography

'In 1938 sculptor Karl Duldig, his wife Slawa Horowitz-Duldig – inventor of the modern foldable umbrella – and their baby daughter Eva, left their home in Vienna for an uncertain future. They found a brief refuge in Singapore before arriving in Sydney on 25 September 1940. Australia was at war: they were classified as enemy aliens and interned in an isolated camp in northern Victoria.

'Karl said, ‘A game of tennis saved my life’. The story follows the family’s narrow escape from Nazi Austria, as well as the recovery of all their Viennese art and other possessions after the war.

'Spanning three continents and three generations, it poignantly captures both the loss that families encounter when they are dislocated by war and the challenges they face when adapting to a new way of life.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
2018 longlisted Kibble Literary Awards — Nita May Dobbie Award
VIEW ALL AWARDS
Last amended 20 Apr 2018 11:22:20
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