Josonia Palaitis (born 1949)[1] is an Australian artist living in Sydney, Australia. She won the 1994 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize[2] with a portrait of her father artist John Mills. In 1995 she won the Archibald Prize People's Choice award with a portrait of Bill Leak (artist and cartoonist for the Australian Newspaper).[3]
The National Portrait Gallery commissioned her in 2000 to paint its first portrait of an Australian Prime Minister to include their spouse, a portrait of John Howard and his wife Janette.[4] In 2002 she was commissioned to paint the Childers Memorial Portrait which depicts the fifteen young backpackers who died in a hostel fire in Childers, Queensland in 2000.[5]
Her portrait Patrick Dodson, Yawuru Man, (of chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, Pat Dodson), was a finalist in the 1998 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and is in the collection of the National Library of Australia. Other prominent people she has painted include: