The Archibald Prize 2016 - Preview

Barry Humphries by Louise Hearman

The clink of champagne flutes, the swish of food trays and the furtive and not-so-furtive chatter of viewers heralded the first private viewing of the 2016 Archibald Prize before it opens to the general public on 16 July. Now in its 95th year (it was first awarded in 1921) and as popular as ever with hopeful artists (and often their subjects too) there is always that level of anticipation to see whom has been selected for the final cut and who were the subjects of their portraits. From well in excess of 2,000 entries, some 51 finalists were chosen to be hung this year with a smattering of regular entrants and some much newer artists appearing for the first time.

There were the usual swag of self protraits by artists Natasha Walsh, Nick Mourtzakis, Tsering Hannaford and one by Yvette Coppersmith where she envisaged herself as actress, Rose Byrne. Various politicians of current note - Woollahra Mayor, Toni Zeltzer (by artist Sinead Davies), Troy Grant, NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for the Arts (by artist Mark Horton) and Federal Liberal Minister for Energy and Resources, Josh Frydenberg (by artist Camillo De Luca). The well-known established and perennial favourites are there such as Imants Tillers, Guan Wei, Nick Stathopoulos, Nicholas Harding who all have entries although none are really so striking as to be controversial. Some of the portraits are almost naive in their structure and texture such as the portrait of art gallery owner, Roslyn Oxley (by artist, Sally Ross) or Dinosaur Designs co-founder, Louise Olsen (by artist, Belynda Henry).

The selected finalists this year are something of a staid collection - vanilla, pedestrian and acceptable but nothing that would frighten the horses. Perhaps when its all said and done, the Archibald has reached gentrification and like the gallery in which it resides, merely sits in the realm of the comfortable, the obvious and the commercially unsurprising. 

1985 Archibald winner, Guy Warren by Danelle Bergstrom

UPATE: Artist Louise Hearman has won the 2016 Archibald Prize for her portrait of Barry Humphries (top of this posting)