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It was sixth time lucky for Melbourne artist Richard Lewer, who has won this year’s Archibald Prize for a portrait of Indigenous artist Iluwanti Ken.
The painting was announced the winner of the $100,000 prize at the Art Gallery of NSW on Friday, selected unanimously by gallery trustees from a near-record 1034 entries and 59 finalists.
Accepting the award, Lewer said he was “deeply humbled” to win, and his intention had always been to bring recognition to the work of his subject, a senior elder and artist known for her ink drawings of mother eagles hunting.
“It’s a really proud moment. When I heard I was shocked to be honest because you never know how things are going to go,” Lewer said. “Like, I painted other paintings that I thought were really great, and they haven’t necessarily won. So you never know, it’s just a matter of luck in a way. I don’t know, maybe it’s the right painting at the right time.
“The best thing about winning this award is I’ll never be referred to as Richard Lewer, sixth or seventh time finalist of the Archibald Prize, which is good because I was kind of sick of it.”
New Zealand-born Lewer’s art spans painting, drawing, animation and video. He studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland and the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne before becoming a fixture in the Australian art scene.
Lewer is no stranger to the Art Gallery of NSW; in 2022, he documented the construction workers behind its Sydney Modern project. And in 2024, he reimagined the Adam and Eve story in 12 paintings for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial.
The Archibald, regarded as Australia’s most prestigious portrait prize, is awarded to the best portrait of a person “distinguished in art, letters, science or politics” painted by an Australian resident. Entries must be painted in the past year and from life, with artists meeting their subjects face-to-face for at least one sitting. Lewer travelled to central Australia for the sitting. Flecks of paint on Iluwanti Ken’s arm suggest her life as a working artist, as if she has just stepped away from the studio.
Last week, self-taught Melbourne artist Sean Layh was awarded the Packing Room Prize – voted by the gallery staff who hang the paintings each year – with a brooding, epically staged portrait of British-Australian actor Jacob Collins performing Hamlet.
Other finalists for this year’s prize include portraits of singer and swimmer Cody Simpson, fashion designers Anna Plunkett and Nicky and Simone Zimmerman, actress Susie Porter and Australian Governor-General Sam Mostyn.
Alongside the Archibald, the $50,000 Wynne prize for landscape painting and figurative sculpture was awarded on Friday to Gaypalani Wanambi for a large, double-sided work detailing the songlines of the Marakulu clan and the ancestral honey hunter, Wuyal.
The $40,000 Sulman Prize for best subject painting, genre painting or mural project went to sentimental favourite Lucy Culliton for a painting of her greyhound Toolah, one of nine rescue dogs she keeps.
“This chair is Toolah’s favourite spot to sleep while I paint in the studio,” Culliton said in her artist statement. “I love how she camouflages herself into the upholstery of the chair. At the time, I was painting large Monaro grass paintings in a matching palette, so I had to include one.”
A near-record 2524 entries were received across the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes this year, with a virtually equal share between male and female artists.
A total of 42 per cent of Archibald finalists were painted by first-time nominees.
Artists again dominated as subjects, with five entering self-portraits and 14 submitting portraits of a fellow artist. Another 13 sitters came from stage and screen, eight were activists or advocates, six were from the world of music, five from fashion and design, and three from media and journalism.
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