The Archibald Prize was the first major prize for portraiture in Australian art. From its beginning The Archibald Prize has provoked controversy, while recording the changing face of Australian society. Numerous legal battles and much debate have focused on the evolving definitions of portraiture.<\/p>\n
Soon to be celebrating 100 years, it was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, and the Archibald quickly became a prize eagerly sought by artists. Not only because of the money it offered and the public exposure it generated, but because it also gave portrait artists an opportunity to have their work shown in a major gallery. Every year many enter (even from this archivist!) in the hope to be one of the fifty artists chosen.<\/p>\n
Fort Street has been well represented in the final Archibald Prize section in the past. The portraits that we know of include:
\n–\u00a0Finalist for 1926 – Norman Carter\u2019s portrait of Fort Street principal, A J Kilgour (Fort Street Archives Collection).
\n–\u00a0Finalist for 1948 – Henry Aloysius Hanke\u2019s portrait of Fortian (c.1890s), His Honour Judge Perdriau (unknown location).
\n–\u00a0Finalist for 1973 – Vaike Liibus\u2019 portrait of Fortian (1914), The Hon Sir Percy Spender (Fort Street Archives Collection).<\/p>\n
The Challenge\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The Fort Street Archives is attempting to assist the Art Gallery of New South Wales with any information related to past finalists in preparation of The Archibald Prize\u2019s celebration of its 100th birthday in 2021. To mark the occasion, the AGNSW will present \u2018Archie 100\u2019, a national touring exhibition exploring the history of the Prize in its centenary year.<\/p>\n Do you have information about or images of any Fort Street connections to the Archibald Prize finalists over the years? The AGNSW does not know the current location of many of these works, most of which will be in private collections, and they are hoping to discover other information, including images and details of the sitters. This includes images or whereabouts of Hanke\u2019s portrait of His Honour Judge Perdriau.<\/p>\n Are you able to help? If so, we\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n Iain Wallace \u2013 School Archivist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Archibald Prize was the first major prize for portraiture in Australian art. From its beginning The Archibald Prize has provoked controversy, while recording the changing face of Australian society. Numerous legal battles and much debate have focused on the evolving definitions of portraiture. Soon to be celebrating 100 years, it was first awarded in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","class_list":["post-1463","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebuzz.net.au\/fortstreet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}