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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 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.
Paul Signac, ‘Leaving the Port of Marseille’ 1906/7 oil on canvas, 46 x 55.2 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Inv GE 6524. Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum 2018, Vladimir Terebenin.

Modern Art from The Hermitage showcases the French gems of two great merchant collectors

In the early 20th century, two families of collectors brought the best of modern French art to Russia. Many of their paintings - including works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne - can now be seen in Sydney.
Dorrit Black, The Bridge, 1930. Oil on canvas on board, 60.0 x 81.0 cm. Bequest of the artist, 1951, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

How our art museums finally opened their eyes to Australian women artists

Dorrit Black, Grace Cossington Smith and Grace Crowley were some of many talented modernist women artists. But only with the advent of second wave feminism in the 1970s was their work properly acknowledged.
Exhibition installation view of Robert Mapplethorpe: the perfect medium at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 Oct 2017 – 18 Feb 2018. All artworks © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission. Photo: AGNSW, Christopher Snee

Friday essay: Mapplethorpe and me

The distinctive visual style of Robert Mapplethorpe’s beautiful, oversized images seems now more classical than shocking. But he can still reveal the subconscious of an era we think we have outgrown.
Australia’s librarians are a vital component of our research institutions. Shutterstock

A library without librarians is a just a shed full of books

The research libraries attached to Australia’s art galleries are one of the nation’s great cultural assets. But the National Gallery of Australia’s library is losing crucial staff as ‘efficiency dividends’ hit home.
Louise Bourgeois’s. Arched figure 1993: powerful and unforgettable. Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation Purchase 2016 © The Easton Foundation.

Review: The naked nude from the Tate

The Art Gallery of NSW’s summer blockbuster sparkles with famous names, including Picasso, Matisse, Turner and Rodin. But for all of its trumpeting of risk and daring, it remains essentially a rather puritanical exercise.

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