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Articles on Archibald prize

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Winner Archibald Prize 2023, Julia Gutman, Head in the sky, feet on the ground, oil, found textiles and embroidery on canvas, 198 x 213.6 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter.

As Julia Gutman’s maverick collage wins the Archibald prize, the award is truly in the hands of a new generation

This year’s Archibald and Wynne Prize winners show that a new generation of artists have now entered the mainstream.
Archibald Prize 2023 finalist, Jill Ansell, Looking east, oil on board and assemblage in found tin, 10.8 x 16.5 cm © the artist, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter

From joyous celebration to the depths of grief: the new orthodoxy of the Archibald prize is there is no orthodoxy

The Archibald Prize and the Royal Easter Show have a great deal in common. Both are enjoyed by the general public, but the entrants in the competitions are very serious about winning.
Winner Archibald Prize 2022, Blak Douglas Moby Dickens, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 300 x 200 cm © the artist, image © AGNSW, Mim Stirling

‘I can’t think of a more timely painting’: Blak Douglas’s Moby Dickens is a deserving winner of the 2022 Archibald Prize

This year’s winning Archibald Prize portrait, Moby Dickens by Blak Douglas, encapsulates the justifiable rage felt by people living in flooded Bundjalung country
Winner: Archibald Prize 1972: Clifton Pugh. ‘The Hon EG Whitlam’ 1972. Oil on composition board, 113.5 x 141.5 cm. © Estate of Clifton Pugh

‘I think Archie would be pleased’: 100 years of our most famous portrait prize and my almost 50 years watching it evolve

It’s 100 years since the Art Gallery of NSW first held the Archibald Prize. Though loathed by some critics, it is an annual snapshot of the kind of society we are, and who our heroes might be.
Archibald Prize 2020 finalist Blak Douglas (aka Adam Hill), Writing in the sand, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 250 x 250 cm © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Felicity Jenkins Sitter: Dujuan Hoosen - documentary star ('In my blood it runs')

‘The most refreshing Archibald exhibition I can remember’: the 2020 portrait prize finalists

Most years, the Archibald exhibition is worth viewing as an amusing exercise in social history. This year it is worth seeing for the art.
Archibald Prize 2019 winner, Tony Costa, ‘Lindy Lee’, oil on canvas, 182.5 x 152 cm, © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Felicity Jenkins Sitter: Lindy Lee - artist

The zen of portraiture: Tony Costa wins the 2019 Archibald Prize

The annual announcement of the Archibald Prize is one of Sydney’s great spectacles. This year’s winning portrait depicts one of Australia’s leading artists, Lindy Lee.
Detail from Archibald Prize 2019 finalist Keith Burt, ‘Benjamin Law: happy sad’ oil on canvas, 59.5 x 59.5 cm, © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carter Sitter: Benjamin Law - author, journalist and broadcaster

Puckish charm and no politicians: the 2019 Archibald Prize

Perhaps as a reflection of the current state of national affairs, this year’s Archibald Prize exhibition is a politician-free zone.
Nora Heysen, Self-portrait 1934 oil on canvas 43.1 x 36.3 cm. National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Purchased 1999 © Lou Klepac

Friday essay: Nora Heysen, more than her father’s daughter

Nora Heysen was the first woman to be awarded the Archibald Prize, but for most of her life she was defined not by her art, but by her relationship to her famous father, the artist Hans Heysen.
Wynne Prize 2017 finalist James Drinkwater, ‘Passage to Rungli Rungliot’, oil on hardboard, 180x360cm. © the artist Photo: Felicity Jenkins, AGNSW

Politics of landscape: the 2017 Wynne Prize finalists

The standard of the 2017 Wynne finalists is as haphazard as previous years, hampered by a sense of tokenism and conventional landscapes, but works by Napanyapa Yunupingu and Juz Kitson stand out.
Detail from Tony Albert Self-portrait (ash on me), acrylic on linen. 102 x 102 cm © the artist Photo: Jenni Carter, AGNSW

The Archibald finalists – and why Tony Albert deserves to win

The packers’ favourite has gained prominence and there are few portraits of politicians in this year’s popular art prize. The stand out work is a deceptively innocent re-appropriation of Aboriginal kitsch.
2015 Archibald Prize winner Nigel Milsom - Judo House Part 6 (The White Bird), oil on linen. © Nigel Milsom, photgraph courtesy of AGNSW, Mim Sterling

Nigel Milsom wins the Archibald, our ‘most fun’ festival of faces

Nigel Milsom has won the 2015 Archibald Prize for his portrait of barrister Charles Waterstreet. It’s clear the regime of the Archibald Prize is quickly, and positively, shifting.
The 2015 Wynne Prize winner is Natasha Bieniek, with Biophilia, oil on dibond. © Natasha Bieniek. Photography courtesy of © AGNSW, Diana Panuccio.

Congratulations Natasha Bieniek, but the Wynne Prize is deeply flawed

The Wynne Prize has been notoriously male-dominated. What does this year’s winning artwork by Natasha Bieniek tell us about the nature of this particular award and how we can improve it?

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