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Richard Lewer has been awarded the 2026 Archibald prize for his portrait of Pitjantjatjara elder, traditional healer and senior artist Iluwanti Ken.
The New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist – a six-time Archibald finalist – was announced as the winner of the $100,000 prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Friday. The judging panel, comprised of the gallery’s trustees, selected the work unanimously from a field of 59 finalists whittled down from 1,034 entries.
“The best thing about winning this award is I’ll never be referred to as ‘Richard Lewer, the six- or seven-time finalist of the Archibald, which is good because I was getting kind of sick of it,” the artist joked in his acceptance speech. “But I don’t know if there’s anything different with this painting or the other paintings or whatever. I think this is the right time, the right painting.”
At the ceremony, gallery director Maud Page said of the winning work, “What can be said? You see the picture. You see the strength of it, you see the poise. You see all of the things that we know makes Australia unique in the world.”
In his artist statement accompanying the work, Lewer described spending time with Iluwanti – herself a finalist in this year’s Wynne prize – at Tjala Arts in Amata, in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands of South Australia. “Being on Country together deepened my understanding of her presence and the responsibilities she carries,” he said.
“In person, Iluwanti is a small woman but she carries immense, quiet authority. I painted her life‑size, so her presence meets the viewer directly. The yellow ochre background holds the intensity of the heat and light we were working in. She loves bright clothing, which feels inseparable from her spirit, and the traces of paint on her arm acknowledge her as a working artist, as if she has just stepped out of the studio.”
Speaking at the announcement, he said of Ken: “She’s a healer. She’s responsible for many families in the community. So she is an important elder. She’s also an important artist in Australia, with her ceramics and paintings … And she just cares so much. So I wanted to kind of give back to her in her portrait.”
When discussing the portrait with her, Lewer says, Ken joked, “‘I want to look good, and I want to look – you know – like a little bit younger and a little bit smiley.’ And so she put the pressure back on to me. So I was quite nervous painting her … we all want to look good, so I did feel a little bit of pressure. I was happy that she was happy with the painting.”
Michael Rose, the director of the AGNSW board of trustees, said that all the judges were “immediately drawn” to the winning work. “It’s a powerful and energetic portrait by an accomplished artist and has captured the energy of another artist that he admires and respects greatly. You can sense that admiration.”
The Archibald, Australia’s most prestigious portraiture prize, is annually awarded to the best portrait of a person “distinguished in art, letters, science or politics” painted by an Australian resident, and has been running since 1921.
In what has become somewhat predictable each year, artists painting themselves or other artists outnumber all other subject categories in 2026. Other cultural figures featured in the shortlist include musicians Daniel Johns by Loribelle Spirovski and Jim Moginie by Mostafa Azimitabar, actor Marta Dusseldorp by Amanda Davies, and journalists Virginia Trioli and Jan Fran, painted by Stieg Persson and Vicki Sullivan respectively.
Alongside the Archibald, the $50,000 Wynne prize for landscape painting and figurative sculpture was also awarded on Friday, to Gaypalani Waṉambi for The Waṉambi tree. Waṉambi was not present to accept the award but in her artist statement said: “This work is about Wuyal, the ancestral honey hunter, an important ancestor of the Marrakulu clan. Wuyal was the first man to look for a homeland for the Marrakulu people.”
Also in the Wynne, Sanné Mestrom was highly commended for What the body knows, a 245.5 x 150 x 90cm sculpture. “From each raised palm, a bronze flower grows. The hands, not the head, are the site of growth, touch, labour and doing. This figure holds her arms wide, insisting on the intelligence of the body,” the artist said in her statement.
The $40,000 Sulman prize for the best genre painting, subject painting, or mural was won by Lucy Culliton for Toolah, a painting of one of seven greyhounds who live with the artist in the Snowy Monaro region of NSW.
“[Toolah] is like a plush toy,” Culliton told Guardian Australia. “She is absolutely a stunner. When people come to visit, they go, wow, that’s a good looking dog. And there’s something about having a good looking subject to paint. And this is her favorite chair, and she just looks so good in it. And for the last year every time she gets in that chair, I go, got a paint that.”
Culliton said she had been entering the Archibald prizes “since I was a puppy”.
“Often hung, but never won,” she said. “This year was the first year that I was quite happy to be hung and not worried about winning. When they rung me, I couldn’t believe it.” Her first instinct was to donate the prize money to Greyhound rescue, she said – before a friend reminded her the money would buy a lot of dog food.
The selection process was particularly competitive in 2026, a year that saw high engagement with a total of 2,524 entries across the three prizes.
Adrian Jangala Robertson, a Warlpiri artist from the Central Desert region of Australia, earned the distinction of becoming a finalist across all three categories: the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. Robertson, who painted Dylan River for the Archibald, is one of only eight artists this year to be featured in multiple prizes.
Announced on 30 April, the Packing Room prize, awarded by the gallery staff who receive and hang the Archibald exhibition, was won by first-time finalist Sean Layh: a self-taught painter whose portrait of the actor Jacob Collins was described as an “instant standout” by the judges.
The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026 exhibition opens to the public on Saturday 9 May and runs until 16 August, before the Archibald finalists begin a regional tour across Victoria and New South Wales.
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