The 2024 National Photographic Portrait Prize and the Darling Portrait Prize for Painting

“Prizes are a leap of faith for any institution; you never quite know what you are going to get”.

Isobel Parker Philip, the National Portrait Gallery’s Curatorial and Collection Director and judge for this year’s National Photographic Portrait Prize (NPPP), explained that “what a prize will showcase, is not an intentional narrative, but a litmus test of what feels urgent and important in the contemporary moment.” 

“What has emerged as the recurring beat in both of the prizes this year is a sense of the intimate and the introspective.” 

The NPPP was initially conceived by the National Portrait Gallery as a platform to support and celebrate photographic portraiture in Australia. Now in its seventeenth year, the prize has become an annual highlight, providing both emerging and established artists an institutional platform that connects them with a broad, public audience.

34 finalists have been selected this year, from almost 2000 entrants. Among these finalists are four artists who practise here on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country including Brenda L Croft, Prue Hazelgrove, Tamara Henderson and Zoe Helene Karouzos.

Being presented alongside the NPPP for the first time is the Darling Portrait Prize, a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting. Honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG, this prize supports the evolving notion of Australian identity while celebrating emerging and established portrait painters. 

24 finalists have been selected for this prize, from almost 1000 entries. One of these finalists, Surya Bajracharya, is a Kamberri-based artist.

Of all of the finalists, Parker Phillip describes “a pensiveness in many of the works on show.”

“They are tender and thoughtful in who they depict, many of them mentors for the creatives, as well close family members and the self, but also how they depict.” 

While prizes such as the NPPP and the Darling are not all about the winners, they do have the power to transform the practice and lives of those artists fortunate enough to win them.

In 2024, the winner of the NPPP takes home a cash prize of $30,000 from the Gallery and Canon equipment valued at $20,000, courtesy of the Gallery’s Imaging Partner, Canon Australia, while the winner of the Darling receives a cash prize of $75,000. Every finalist selected receives an artist’s fee of $1200, a copyright and licensing fee of $1000, as well as having covered the costs of freight and travel to visit the Gallery in Canberra. 

Judges Isobel Parker Philip (Portrait Gallery Director Curatorial and Collection), José de Silva (Director of Sydney’s UNSW Galleries, and curator of the 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art) and Pippa Milne (Curator PHOTO Australia) have selected Alexis with moon by Amos Gebhardt as the winner of the NPPP.

“I am feeling so elated. I didn’t sleep much last night,” Gebhardt shares after this public announcement. 

“This portrait is actually part of a larger series. I wanted to work with different people who I love and respect, people who I see as visionaries or luminaries of some kind, who work in different ways to address systems of power and liberation in their life and work.”

“To me Alexis [Wright]'s novels are these beautiful drops of wrapped up wisdom. I wanted to honour her and the impact she has had on me. To be able to pair her with the moon felt quite a beautiful link because she is a luminary and the moon is a powerful symbol of luminescence.”

The Darling Portrait Prize, judged by Bree Pickering (Director, National Portrait Gallery), Erin Vink, (Curator First Nations Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Tara Heffernan (Art Historian and Critic) has been won by Noel McKenna for William Nuttall with horses in field.

“This is an energetic and unexpected portrait,” the judges said of McKenna’s work. “The subject shares the work with animals and the landscape. It is joyous in its execution and demonstrates the skill of an established Australian artist whose practice is assured in every way.”

McKenna, who lives and works on Gadigal Country in Sydney, is a highly recognised and established artist. The winner of the Sulman Prize in 1994 and a five-time winner of the Art Gallery of NSW Trustee’s prize for watercolour, McKenna’s paintings often explore everyday scenarios and highlight the relationship between humans and animals. 

His winning portrait is of his long-time art dealer and friend. 

Also among the prize winners are those selected by the Gallery’s art handlers. This year, Shelley Xue's 阿谊 (ah Yi) has been selected the winner for the NPPP Art Handlers’ award, while Nena Salobir receives the Darling Portrait Prize honour for Self portrait on washcloth. While different in medium, these portraits both speak to intimacy and ephemerality, complicating the notion of portraiture and what it can be. 

Both artists receive $2,000 cash from exhibition partner IAS Fine Art Logistics.

In order to further portraiture as an artform and to solidify its support for Australian artists, the National Portrait Gallery made significant changes to both the Darling Portrait Prize and the NPPP in 2024. In a move to align the two prizes with the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy – Revive: a place for every story and a story for every place, in addition to making them more accessible and equitable, the Gallery has removed all financial barriers to entry in addition to monetary awards and support for all finalists.

This change has already resulted in an increased number of entrants and will continue to impact the breadth and diversity of work considered for years to come. 

The National Portrait Prize and the Darling Portrait Prize open to the public on Saturday 22 June, 2024 and run until 13 October, 2024.

Visitors will have the chance to vote for their favourite works in the People’s Choice Awards. The artist who receives the most votes in the Darling Prize People’s Choice Award will be awarded $10,000 courtesy of the Liangis Family Foundation. The artist who receives the most votes in the NPPP People’s Choice Award, will be awarded $10,000 cash courtesy of the Calvert-Jones Foundation as well as a prize pack from EIZO.