This year’s winning Archibald Prize portrait, Moby Dickens by Blak Douglas, encapsulates the justifiable rage felt by people living in flooded Bundjalung country
In its centenary year, the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales could not resist the symbolism of awarding the Archibald Prize to Peter Werner’s portrait of the 100 year old Guy Warren.
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.
For the first time in its 99 year-history, the Archibald Prize has been won by an Indigenous painter. The Wynne and Sulman Prize winners also signal a time of change.
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.
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.
The lively reconfiguring of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman exhibitions means it is harder to work out which paintings the judges are considering as potential winners.
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.
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.
This year’s Archibald Prize winner is a painting with great affection for its subject. Louise Hearman’s Barry was a surprise choice – but it deserves to find an ultimate home in the National Portrait Gallery.
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 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?
Tim Maguire’s portrait of Cate Blanchett is one of the finalists for this year’s Archibald Prize.
AGNSW
The real spectacle of the Archibald Portrait Prize emerges behind the scenes. Each year, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) loading dock turns into a frenzy of artwork arrivals and departures…
The Young Archie is a new category in the annual Archibald Prize. But should it be abandoned?
AAP Image/Paul Miller
Prizes are a common feature on the cultural economy landscape. In Australia there is the famous Archibald Prize for portraiture, there are numerous prizes for literature and poetry, the AFI Awards in film…
Namatjira, by Imants Tillers, which won the 2013 Wynne Prize.
Art Gallery of NSW
It was the 1960s when a curator – who shall remain nameless – was ordered to hang Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira’s work in his gallery. He hung the painting next to the ladies toilet with a vase of…
Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne