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.
Brett Whiteley AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. He held many exhibitions, and lived and painted in Australia as well as Italy, England, Fiji and the United States.
Margaret Hannah Olley was an Australian painter. She held over ninety solo exhibitions during her lifetime.
Sir William Dobell was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour.
Sir George Russell Drysdale, also known as Tass Drysdale, was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954. He was influenced by abstract and surrealist art, and "created a new vision of the Australian scene as revolutionary and influential as that of Tom Roberts".
John Henry Olsen AO OBE was an Australian artist and winner of the 2005 Archibald Prize. Olsen's primary subject of work was landscape.
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize and the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
Sali Herman was a Swiss-born Australian artist, one of Australia's Official War Artists for the Second World War.
Nicholas Harding was a British-born Australian artist, known for his paintings, in particular portraits.
Elioth Lauritz Leganyer Gruner was an Australian artist. A successor of the plein air Heidelberg School tradition in Australian art, Gruner is known for his high-key impressionist landscapes and his ability to capture the ephemeral effects of light. According to Norman Lindsay, Gruner "painted the purest light that ever has been seen on a bit of canvas".
Sofala is a village in New South Wales, Australia, 255 kilometres (158 mi) north-west of Sydney, within Bathurst Regional Council. It is located beside the Turon River. Sofala is just off the Bathurst-Ilford Road, with only local traffic through the town itself. At the 2006 census, Sofala had a population of 208.
John Beard is a Welsh artist and painter born in Aberdare, Wales, now based in Sydney, Lisbon and London.
Elisabeth Cummings is an Australian artist known for her large abstract paintings and printmaking. She has won numerous awards including Fleurieu Art Prize, The Portia Geach Portrait Prize, The Mosman Art Prize, and The Tattersalls Art Prize. Her work is owned in permanent collections across Australia including Artbank, The Queensland Art Gallery, The Gold Coast City Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She is notable for receiving recognition later in her career, considered by the Australian Art Collector as one of the 50 most collectible Australian Artists.
George Feather Lawrence (1901–1981) was born in Sydney, Australia and for many years was regarded as one of the foremost painters in the impressionist style. He studied under Julian Rossi Ashton at the famous Sydney Art School in the old Queen Victoria Building; and later in London and Paris.
The cricketers is a 1948 painting by the Australian artist Russell Drysdale. The painting depicts three boys set among the buildings in an empty town; two playing cricket and the other watching them. The National Gallery of Australia describes the painting as "one of the most original and haunting images in all Australian art." The Sydney Morning Herald said the work is "possibly the most famous Australian painting of the 20th century."
Michael Kmit was a Ukrainian painter who spent twenty-five years in Australia. He is notable for introducing a neo-Byzantine style of painting to Australia, and winning a number of major Australian art prizes including the Blake Prize (1952) and the Sulman Prize. In 1969 the Australian artist and art critic James Gleeson described Kmit as "one of the most sumptuous colourists of our time".
Constance Stokes was an Australian modernist painter who worked in Victoria. She trained at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School until 1929, winning a scholarship to continue her study at London's Royal Academy of Arts. Although Stokes painted few works in the 1930s, her paintings and drawings were exhibited from the 1940s onwards. She was one of only two women, and two Victorians, included in a major exhibition of twelve Australian artists that travelled to Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy in the early 1950s.
Jean Bellette was an Australian artist. Born in Tasmania, she was educated in Hobart and at Julian Ashton's art school in Sydney, where one of her teachers was Thea Proctor. In London she studied under painters Bernard Meninsky and Mark Gertler.
Lucy Culliton is an Australian artist, based in Hartley. She is known for her paintings of landscapes and still life.
Aida Tomescu is an Australian contemporary artist who is known for her abstract paintings, collages, drawings and prints. Tomescu is a winner of the Dobell Prize for Drawing, the Wynne Prize for Landscape and the Sir John Sulman Prize, by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
