Archibald prize 2026: Richard Lewer portrait of artist Iluwanti Ken wins $100,000

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 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.

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 the 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.”

Michael Rose, director of the Art Gallery’s Board of Trustees, said in a statement that all the trustees 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 Gaypalri 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.”

Wynne Prize 2026 winner The Waṉambi tree, by Gaypalani Waṉambi. Spray paint on etched steel, 240 x 240cm. Photograph: Jenni Carter

Also in the Wynne, Sanné Mestrom was highly commended for What the body knows, a 245.5 x 150 x 90cm sculpture of “my own body, as both a maternal body and a sculptor’s body, learns from the inside,” the artist said.

Sanné Mestrom’s sculpture What the body knows. Photograph: Jenni Carter/Image © Art Gallery of New South

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. “This chair is Toolah’s favourite spot to sleep while I paint in the studio,” Culliton said in her artist statement. “I love how she camouflages herself into the upholstery.”

Toolah, artist model by Lucy Culliton, oil on canvas, 137.6 x 137.1cm. Photograph: Diana Panuccio/Image © Art Gallery of New South

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.

Warlpiri artist from the Central Desert region of Australia, Adrian Jangala Robertson, earned the distinction of becoming a finalist across all three categories: the Archibald, Wynne, and Sulman prizes. Robertson, whose 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 tomorrow, Saturday 9 May, and runs until 16 August, before the Archibald finalists begin a regional tour across Victoria and New South Wales.