National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

The National Photographic Portrait Prize is an annual event promoting portraiture by contemporary Australian photographers, both amateur and professional. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the prize. This year the judges selected 49 portraits for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 exhibition from a record number of 3,000 entries.

“The works in this year’s prize – as the NPPP always seems to do – supply a fabulous snapshot of the scope of the portrait photography spectrum, as well as a vivid and complex picture of the communities we inhabit’, said Joanna Gilmour, Portrait Gallery Curator and NPPP judge.

Richard Morecroft and Alison Mackay, 2016. © Gary Grealy. Winner, National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017.
Richard Morecroft is a former ABC news presenter and an accomplished landscape photographer, with his work held in The Australian Parliament House Collection. Alison Mackay is a masterful painter – she has works in major collections and has been a finalist in many Australian art prizes, as well as running art workshops with numerous leading Australian artists. My portrait of Richard and Alison is about a partnership in life and work. The pair have co-authored books and created features for magazines; they also jointly and individually exhibit their art.
Richard Morecroft and Alison Mackay, 2016. © Gary Grealy. Winner, National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017. Richard Morecroft is a former ABC news presenter and an accomplished landscape photographer, with his work held in The Australian Parliament House Collection. Alison Mackay is a masterful painter – she has works in major collections and has been a finalist in many Australian art prizes, as well as running art workshops with numerous leading Australian artists. My portrait of Richard and Alison is about a partnership in life and work. The pair have co-authored books and created features for magazines; they also jointly and individually exhibit their art.

The winner of the 2017 National Photographic Portrait Prize is Gary Grealy for his portrait of Richard Morecroft and Alison Mackay. Grealy took home the $25,000 cash prize.

Highly Commended: John Benavente for Renaissance Rose and Brett Canet-Gibson for Mastura. The Highly Commended receives a CG277X screen valued at $4,000 from EIZO. The winner of the Art Handlers’ award receives $2,000 cash and the cost of shipping for their work upon the end of the exhibition, from International Art Services (IAS).

Art Handler’s Award: Tobias Titz for Bobby Bunungurr.

The judges for the 2017 competition were Joanna Gilmour, Curator, National Portrait Gallery; Dr Sarah Engledow, Curator, National Portrait Gallery; George Fetting, guest judge, photographer.

The People’s Choice Award closes on 1 June 2017. Vote for your favourite portrait here. 

Georgia and Angus (Australian Gothic), 2016. © Charlie White.
Georgia and Angus (Australian Gothic), 2016. © Charlie White.

 

Upcoming Events Submit an Event

November

Sydney: The exhibition delves into the State Library of NSW's vast collection of two million images, showcasing 400 photos – many displayed for the first time.

February

Melbourne: Jill Orr’s The Promised Land Refigured is an exhibition that reworks the original project created in 2012 with new insights that have emerged in the past eleven years.

March

Melbourne: Environmental Futures features five artists whose work addresses how the natural world is affected by climate change and encompasses photography, sculpture and installation both within the gallery spaces and around the museum grounds.

Ballarat: Nan Goldin is an American artist whose work explores subcultures, moments of intimacy, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics on her communities, and photography as a tool for social activism.

Sydney: The Ocean Photographer of the Year Award, run by London based Oceanographic Magazine is in its 4th year and has quickly achieved recognition amongst photographers around the world.

Albury: The National Photography Prize offers a $30,000 acquisitive prize, the $5000 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship for an emerging practitioner, and further supports a number of artists through focused acquisitions.

April

Sydney: Photographers Harold David, Lyndal Irons, Ladstreet, Selina Ou, David Porter, Greg Semu, and Craig Walsh exhibit a diverse and varied snapshot of Penrith and western Sydney as it has changed and grown over the last sixty years.

The City Surveyor’s ‘Condemnation and Demolition Books’ is a key photographic collection held in the City Archives comprising almost 5000 photographs and associated glass plate negatives.

Sydney: The images in Bill Henson’s cinematic new body of work, The Liquid Night, derive from work the highly acclaimed artist shot on 35mm colour negative film in New York City in 1989.

May

Ballarat: Art Gallery of Ballarat presents Lost in Palm Springs, a multidisciplinary exhibition that brings together fourteen creative minds who respond to, capture, or re-imagine the magical qualities of the landscape and the celebrated mid-century modern architecture of Palm Springs, California and across Australia.