Right now, there’s an explosion of art and prizes and celebrity across the bumper crop of exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The three prizes collide generating huge interest and serving as a backbone of the Australian arts community. This year, the gallery received 2394 entries across the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes. There’s even the Young Archie competition, also on display, whetting the tastebuds of the next generation.
Out of 904 entries to the Archibald Prize 57 finalists were selected; the Wynne Prize received 758 entries and selected 52; and the Sulman Prize received 732 entries and narrowed it down to 30 finalists, all of which are on display until August in the gallery. It’s a great year for women as well, being the first year there are more finalist works by women artists across the three competitions, and it’s the 15th time the Archibald Prize has been won by a woman, Julie Fragar. The Archibald was first awarded in 1921, which does not make 15 sound like a lot, but progress is progress.
Fragar won the $100,000 prize for her portrait of fellow Brisbane artist and colleague Justene Williams, titled Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), which depicts Williams as an ‘active master of a multiverse of characters and events’.
Fragar said, ‘To be the winner of the Archibald Prize is a point of validation. It means so much to have the respect of my colleagues at the Art Gallery. It doesn’t get better than that. Justene is incredible. I feel very fortunate that she allowed me to do this portrait. There is nobody like her. The work is a reflection on the experience of making art to deadlines, and the labour and love of being a mother.’
In March of this year Maud Page, became the first female director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in its 154-year history, and Beatrice Gralton has taken over as the curator of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes.
Irresistible chatted to Maud and Beatrice about what this extravaganza of Australian talent means to them, and while having a good look at the winners, we’ve put together a selection of the best of the shows.Â
Congratulations Maud on your first Archibald Prize as director- it must be so exciting?
Maud Page: All the buzz in the room, all the packers, it’s just brilliant. It’s the time when we have the most living artists on show in our building and that’s incredible. It’s also the most democratic prize. So there are artists that we haven’t necessarily chosen alongside artists that we work with all the time. So it’s really bursting with creativity. So to start in this way has been absolutely fantastic.
What are you loving so far in your new role?
Maud Page: I’m loving being able to imagine what we might be able do in the future. Being about to create a vision is an incredible honour.
What is that vision you’re talking about? What is your dream to create?
Maud Page: New shows, new programming, all of it. I’m interested in how do we get a different feel in the gallery. Looking around today at all the multitude of people here for the Archibald, thats what its about. People and energy. All that creativity. I want to get stuck into how do we access different communities across Sydney. When people think about where they’re going to go on any day, I want the gallery to come up. No hesitation. That’s my dream; to make it the natural choice.
Which communities would like to have more connection with the Art Gallery of New South Wales?
Maud Page: For me, it’s all those communities that perhaps don’t feel the gallery is for them. I’m really want everyone to know that they can cross the threshold and feel at home. It’s always been free to visit, so I want people to come in, enjoy it and make it their own.
Sometimes I meet people from different communities and they don’t realise that they don’t need to pay to come in. I want everyone to know that we have a whole lot of programs; the cinema; the talks, the performances, there’s so many parts to what we do. And we’re open late on Wednesday nights!
Is there an area of the gallery that you’d like to give a shout out to?
Maud Page: Our film curator is extraordinary. Her name is Ruby, Arrowsmith Todd. She’s a really sharp young woman, one of my sharpest curators, and its an area we can expand into. She curated our Cao Fei exhibition and that was a really different one for us to do, and it went so well.
Beatrice, it’s your first Archibald Prize as curator- what a big job! How did it go?
Beatrice Gralton: I think a baptism by fire is the only way to answer that question. You just have to dive right in and enjoy the process because it is quite a process. It’s not a normal show.
Did you pick up any tips from watching the teams in previous years?
Beatrice Gralton: I did do some shadowing last year of our head curator, Wayne Tanneycliff. He was doing the Archie last year and he said to me, ‘I need you to come to the selection weekend.’
I looked at him and said, ‘Why do you need me to come?’
And he said, ‘Why do you think?’
So, I knew I was in a kind of training last year, and I was prepared and totally looking forward to it. I’ve taken lots of advice from all my colleagues who have worked on it before.
There are 57 finalists and works in the Archibald. How many submissions were there?
Beatrice Gralton: There were over 900 submissions. So, about 6% are hung in the show. It does differ every year. It was a big one. It’s a fast moving day and the trustees have got a lot of work to look at and a lot of big decisions to make. I’m in the room to make sure that they’ve got enough yeses, and then enough maybes to go back and pull out from the pile, and that they haven’t put anything in the no pile that really should be coming back into the show.
How does it all get viewed?
Beatrice Gralton: The trustees sit at table set up so they are all in one line, and the packers carry each work past them. Every work is viewed. When we talk about the Archibald being a democratic prize, this is what we mean -it really is. Every single work is seen by the trustees, and as they walk past the packers say the name of the artist and the name of the sitter. Then the trustees discuss all the work.
It’s only your first one, but do Archibald curators typically continue for quite a few years?
Beatrice Gralton: Wayne’s done it on and off for years because he’s been here a long time. And Ryan has done it for several years.
You know, yes, because of the rhythm of it, and it does consume a huge amount of your year, of your working year, and then it goes on tour as well. So you go, you take it regionally. Yeah.
So, yeah, you do commit to it, I think, for a few years at least.
Do you see a core of Australian artists that usually submit?
Beatrice Gralton: There are artists that you see coming through again and again, but each time what they do is different. For example, Marcus Wills won in 2006 and here he is again in 2025 with Cormac in Arcadia, and he’s been a finalist lots of times in between. Or the artist Abdul Abdullah. He was a finalist in 2011 with his portrait of Waleed Aly. He has been a finalist in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes multiple times and now he’s here again 2025, with his portrait of Jason Phu, who himself is a finalist with his portrait of Hugo Weaving.
What about people submitting for the first time? They can be at different stages in their art careers?
Beatrice Gralton: You do get a full cross section of artists. You have those who are very versed at entering prizes and being part of a process. And then the younger artists who are coming up and wanting to dip their toe in the water and see what happens. And then perhaps older artists who are less established, but super keen and have said, ‘Right, I’m going to have a go, and I’m just going to be brave and do it.’
I think there’s something about the persistence of being an artist. If it’s what you’re meant to do, then it’s something that’s hard to escape from. No matter how much you try and block it, it’ll come through.
Throughout the delivery period, the Packing Room team are also looking for contenders for the popular Packing Room Prize, a $3000 cash prize awarded to the best entry in the Archibald Prize as judged by the Packing Room staff.
Abdul Abdullah won for his portrait of fellow artist and friend Jason Phu. Abdullah’s portrait, titled No mountain high enough. This his seventh time as an Archibald finalist.Â
Abdullah said, ‘It is always an honour to be selected as a finalist for the Archibald Prize, and I am especially honoured to be picked for the Packing Room Prize. I see it as a sort of community prize, where the Packing Room team, which is made up of professional art handlers – many of whom are artists themselves – get to pick a painting they like. I am so glad they picked this one. It’s kind of like an artists’ pick, and I’m extra happy for that.’
‘Jason is my best friend. We talk on the phone every day, he was the best man at my wedding, and we have travelled together. I’ve painted him as I see him, as a ceaseless adventurer who at any one time is involved in a dozen conversations on a dozen different platforms, bringing his unique perspective to one flummoxed friend or another.’
Next up, the Wynne Prize, which is Australia’s oldest art prize and is awarded annually for ‘the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’. The $50,000 prize was established following a bequest by Richard Wynne and first awarded in 1897 to mark the official opening of the Art Gallery at its present site.Â
Sydney artist Jude Rae has won the for her painting Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal, depicting an immense sky underlaid with the rust reds of impending sunrise.
Speaking of the work, Rae said: ‘There is something compelling about the constantly flashing gantry lights and the floodlights blasting away in those hours just before dawn. I am up at various times and love to watch the pre-dawn light, when the sky is just starting to change colour. From my bathroom window on the fifth floor of my building, I have a clear view of that scene. There is no way to photograph it – it’s too subtle and too fleeting. It’s a big sky and we’re all really little.’
‘When I wake before dawn, as the sky is starting to show the first flush of deep blue, this is what I see from my bedroom windows in Redfern. Port Botany container terminal: logistics operating 24/7. Australia, trading nation: still doing what it must despite US tariffs; still in the business of transportation.’ —Jude Rae
And the there’s the Sulman Prize, which is awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist. Established within the terms of Sir John Sulman’s bequest, the prize was first awarded in 1936.
Gene A’Hern has won the $40,000 prize for his work Sky painting, a bold, vibrant and gestural work that draws on his relationship to the Blue Mountains where he lives and works.
Speaking of his win, A’Hern said: ‘Painted with expansive movements to capture a sense of scale and colour, this painting unfolded as I immersed myself in skywatching, while reflecting on the ceremonial choreography of the surrounding environment. It conveys a sensation of nature’s gestures, composed to resonate from within, translating an omnipresence that comes from dust and returns to dust.’
‘The work draws on charged memories – birds singing in harmony, branches sighing in the wind, the closing curtain of the setting sun, all forming a living landscape that I breathe with and through. For me, the sky and the Blue Mountains intertwine and reveal themselves as a place of origin, deep memory and belonging.’
This year’s Sulman Prize judge was Sydney artist Elizabeth Pulie, who selected A’Hern’s winning work from a record 732 entries for the Sulman in 2025.
‘Gene A’Hern’s work is an unselfconscious dedication to line and colour – its almost excessive celebration of the materiality of paint manifesting a certain energy that repeatedly attracted my attention throughout the judging process,’ said Pulie.
The popular Young Archie competition received more than 3200 entries in 2025, with entries received from budding young artists aged five to 18 from every state and territory, showcasing the enduring popularity of this family-friendly crowd favourite. Seventy finalists from across the four Young Archie age categories have been selected to be exhibited at the Art Gallery.
The 2025 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman winners and all finalists will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until Sunday 17 August 2025.
Following the exhibition at the Art Gallery, Archibald Prize 2025 finalist works will tour to six venues across New South Wales and Victoria.Â
Wynne Prize 2025 finalist works will tour to four venues in regional New South Wales.
FULL LIST OF 2025 ARCHIBALD FINALISTS
Abdul Abdullah Sitter:Â Jason Phu
Clara Adolphs Sitter:Â Adrian Jangala Robertson
Jessica Ashton Sitter:Â Katie Noonan
Mostafa Azimitabar Sitter:Â Grace Tame
Billy Bain Sitter:Â Rona Panangka Rubuntja
Natasha Bieniek Sitter: Cressida Campbell
Angela Brennan Sitter:Â Bridget Brennan
Yuriyal Bridgeman Sitter:Â Sana Balai
Mitch Cairns Sitter:Â Stephen Ralph
Mathew Calandra Sitter:Â Mathew Calandra
Peter Ke Heng Chen Sitter: Aaron Chen
Rachel Coad Sitter: Ken Leung
Yvette Coppersmith Sitter:Â Yvette Coppersmith
Luke Cornish and Christophe Domergue Sitter:Â Yvonne Weldon
Jonathan Dalton Sitter: Natasha Walsh
Whitney Duan Sitter: Chun Yin Rainbow Chan 陳雋
Jeremy Eden Sitter: Felix Cameron
Remy Faint Sitter:Â Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran
David Fairbairn Sitter: Bruce French
Timothy Ferguson Sitter: Keiran Gordon
Robert Fielding Sitter:Â Arnold Dodd
Julie Fragar Sitter:Â Justene Williams
Linda Gold Sitter:Â Neale Daniher
Jaq Grantford Sitter:Â Antonia Kidman and Nicole Kidman
Yolande Gray Sitter:Â Pippin Drysdale
Tsering Hannaford Sitter: Tsering Hannaford
JESWRI Sitter:Â Corey “Nooky” Webster
Brittany Jones Sitter:Â Brittany Jones
Solomon Kammer Sitter: Kim Leutwyler
Madeleine Kelly Sitter:Â Diana Wood Conroy
Daniel Kim Sitter:Â Thom Roberts
Bronte Leighton-Dore Sitter: Monica Rani Rudhar
Richard Lewer Sitter:Â Richard Lewer
Fiona Lowry Sitter:Â Ken Done
Col Mac Sitter:Â Miranda Otto
Catherine McGuiness Sitter:Â Shan Turner-Carroll
Kerry McInnis Sitter: Savanhdary Vongpoothorn
Kelly Maree Sitter:Â Jackie O
Vincent Namatjira Sitter:Â Vincent Namatjira
Chris O’Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa)Â Sitter:Â Chris O’Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa)
Sassy Park Sitter:Â Casey Chen
Sid Pattni Sitter:Â Sid Pattni
Meagan Pelham Sitter:Â Charlie Villas and Nikita Majajas (aka Chakita)
Jason Phu Sitter:Â Hugo Weaving
Adrian Jangala Robertson Sitter: Warwick Thornton
Joan Ross Sitter: Coby Edgar
Sally Ryan Sitter:Â Kathy Lette
Evan Shipard Sitter: Costa Georgiadis
Loribelle Spirovski Sitter:Â William Barton
Vipoo Srivilasa Sitter:Â Vipoo Srivilasa
Clare Thackway Sitter:Â Clare Thackway
Natasha Walsh Sitter:Â Atong Atem
Peter Wegner Sitter:Â Sue Chrysanthou
Kaylene Whiskey Sitter:Â Kaylene Whiskey
Marcus Wills Sitter: Cormac Wright
Callum Worsfold Sitter:Â Callum Worsfold
Lucila Zentner Sitter: Wendy Sharpe
