Archibald Prize
portraiture prize
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 (with two exceptions) and since July 2015 the prize has been AU$100,000.
Winners
Prize money
1921 – £400
1941 – £443 / 13 / 4
1942 – £441 / 11 / 11
1951 – £500
1970 – $2,000
1971 – $4,000
2006 – $35,000
2008 – $50,000
2013 – $60,000
2012 – $75,000
2015 – $100,000
Additional prizes
Since 1988 two other prizes have been added to the Archibald prize event.
People's Choice Award
The People's Choice Award, in which votes from the public viewing the finalists are collected to find a winner, was first awarded in 1988. Since 2021 the award comes with a monetary prize of A$5,000. The inaugural People's Choice Award prize was won by Fred Cress with his portrait of fellow artist John Beard, which had won the Archibald Prize. This was the first 'double' win until Craig Ruddy won both awards with his portrait of David Gulpilil (David Gulpilil, Two Worlds) in 2004.
Packing Room Prize
In 1992 the Packing Room Prize was established, in which the staff who receive the portraits and install them in the gallery vote for their choice of winner.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q425596. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1919, 2015 and 1941.
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