The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919. It is administered by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and awarded for "the best portrait, preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics, painted by an artist resident in Australia during the twelve months preceding the date fixed by the trustees for sending in the pictures". The Archibald Prize has been awarded annually since 1921 and since July 2015 the prize has been AU$100,000.
Salon des Refusés is a popular Australian art exhibition which shows some of the rejected submissions to the Archibald Prize, Australia's most prestigious art prize for portraiture, and also the Wynne Prize entries for landscape & figure sculpture. The Salon des Refusés exhibition was initiated in 1992 by the S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney, in response to the large number of works entered into the Archibald Prize not selected for hanging in the official exhibition. Its name comes from a similar event that started in Paris in 1863, also called Salon des Refusés. S.H. Ervin Gallery is still the venue for Salon des Refusés.
Evert Ploeg is one of Australia's most highly regarded portrait painters, who has won a range of painting prizes, such as the 1999 and 2007 Archibald Prize and was awarded the highly coveted ‘Signature Status’ of The Portrait Society of America.
Nicholas Harding was a British-born Australian artist, known for his paintings, in particular portraits.
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford, is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.
Paul Newton is an Australian artist. He has won the Archibald Prize Packing Room Prize twice: in 1996 with a portrait of radio announcer John Laws CBE; and, again in 2001 with a portrait of characters Roy Slaven and HG Nelson.
Jenny Sages is an Archibald Prize People's Choice Award winning Australian artist. She is known for her abstract landscape paintings and portraits. She arrived in Australia in 1948. After being expelled from East Sydney Tech, Jenny moved to New York to study at Franklin School of Art. She was a freelance writer and illustrator for Vogue Australia until the 1980s before starting full-time painting in 1985 at the age of 52. Her career transformation was greatly influenced by a trip to Kimberley, Western Australia, where she felt enchanted by the local indigenous culture. Her unique style is created using wax and pigments and the minimal use of brushes.
Ben Quilty is an Australian artist and social commentator, who has won a series of painting prizes: the 2014 Prudential Eye Award, 2011 Archibald Prize, and 2009 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He has been described as one of Australia's most famous living artists.
The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in Darlinghurst, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts practice across various disciplines.
Sam Leach is an Australian contemporary artist. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia. Leach worked for many years in the Australian Tax Office after completion of a degree in Economics. He also completed a Diploma of Art, Bachelor of Fine Art degree and a Master of Fine Art degree at RMIT in Melbourne, Victoria. Leach currently resides in Melbourne. Leach's work has been exhibited in several museum shows including "Optimism" at the Queensland Art Gallery and "Neo Goth" at the University of Queensland Art Museum in 2008, in 2009 "the Shilo Project" at the Ian Potter Museum of Art and "Horror Come Darkness" at the Macquarie University Art Gallery and "Still" at Hawkesbury Regional Gallery in 2010. His work is held in public collections of regional galleries of Geelong, Gold Coast, Coffs Harbour, Newcastle and Gippsland and the collections of La Trobe University and the University of Queensland.
Fiona Lowry is an Australian painter who airbrushes pale colours to portray landscapes with people in them. The landscapes are beautiful and ambiguous, provoking the dangerous side of wilderness. Lowry also paints portraits and won the 2014 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a portrait of Penelope Seidler. She is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, as well as the state galleries of Australia and in private collections.
Michael Zavros is an Australian artist.
Luke Cornish is an Australian stencil artist, also known as E.L.K. In 2012 Cornish became the first stencil artist to become a finalist in the Archibald Prize. He was also awarded the Holding Redlich People's Choice Award at the Archibald Prize Salon des Refusés in 2017, the Churchill Fellowship in 2013 and was a finalist in the Sulman prize in the same year. In 2011, he was a finalist in the Metro Art Prize, won the Australian Stencil Art prize in 2010, and in 2008 he won the most popular stencil at Melbourne Stencil Festival. In 2012, Cornish's short film, 'Me- We', which documented the process and construction of his portrait of Father Bob Maguire for entry into the 2012 Archibald Prize, was shortlisted in the Tropfest Awards Film Festival. Other notable achievements include being selected for 2012's Project 5 charity auction, a large involvement in 2011's Outpost Project. Cornish has exhibited his work in capital and regional cities in Australia, and in major international cultural centres, including Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles and Amsterdam.
Tim Storrier AM is an Australian artist who won the 2012 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize with The Lunar Savant, a portrait of fellow artist McLean Edwards.
The page List of Archibald Prize winners provides a summary of Archibald Prize winners.
This page provides directions to Lists of finalists of the annual Australian Archibald Prize for portraiture.
Vincent Fantauzzo, is a Melbourne-based Australian portrait artist known for his award winning portraits of Heath Ledger, Brandon Walters, Matt Moran, Emma Hack, Baz Luhrmann, Asher Keddie and his son Luca. He has won the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize twice, the Archibald Packing Room Prize, and the Archibald People's Choice Award four times.
Dagmar Evelyn Cyrulla is an Australian contemporary artist and Archibald finalist. In both 2022 & 2023 she was named one of Australia's 100 hottest collectable artists. Her work is about relationships, especially those from a woman’s perspective. In 2017, her painting, 'I Am' was 'Highly Commended' in the Doug Moran portrait prize. In 2017 her work 'The phone call IV' won the Manning regional gallery's "Naked and Nude" art prize.
Vincent Namatjira is an Aboriginal Australian artist living in Indulkana, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara in South Australia. He has won many art awards, and after being nominated for the Archibald Prize several times, he became the first Aboriginal person to win it in 2020. He is the great-grandson of the Arrente watercolour artist Albert Namatjira.
