Published: 3 June 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Portraits of Deborah Conway, John Safran and Ella Simons are among those selected for this year's Archibald Portrait Exhibition
Media attention at last month’s Archibald Prize announcement at the Art Gallery of NSW naturally focused on Blak Douglas and his portrait of fellow Indigenous artist Karla Dickens which won the $100,000 first prize.
Douglas became just the second Indigenous artist (after Vincent Namatjira in 2020) to be awarded Australia’s most prestigious portrait prize.
The Archibald, which is now more than a century old, was founded, ironically, by JF Archibald, the racist publisher of The Bulletin magazine which, after 130 years of publication, was closed down in 2008.
Nineteen other Indigenous artists submitted Archibald entries this year, while 27 painters of Indigenous heritage made the finals of the Archibald and its sister prizes: the Wynne (landscape) and the Sulman (genre).
Less noticed was the success of Jewish artists and/or subjects. Three of the people whose portraits hang in the 2022 Archibald exhibition are Jewish.
Singer-songwriter and former model Deborah Conway sat for hours on a milk crate for Lewis Miller (whose portrait of artist Allan Mitelman won the Archibald in 1998).
Filmmaker, author and satirist John Safran - a frequent Archibald subject - was depicted as both David and Goliath by Jewish newcomer to the competition, Avraham Vofsi.
