Sydney photographer Gary Grealy has won the 2017 National Photographic Portrait prize for his portrait of presenter Richard Morecroft and artist Alison Mackay.
Of the 49 finalists, John Benavente and Brett Canet-Gibson were also highly commended by the competition, which was held by the National Portrait Gallery.
Guest judge George Fetting said Grealy’s portrait of the pair “beautifully conveyed a mixture of subdued emotions”.
“The contrasting facial expressions, body language and soft side lighting combine to produce a painterly quality of a time gone by. It’s a meticulous work cloaked in curiosity and intrigue, with the furtive smile to seduce the viewer.”
In his artist’s statement, Grealy said: “My portrait of Richard and Alison is about a partnership in life and work.”
Morecroft is a former ABC news presenter and host for SBS, and Mackay is an accomplished artist. The pair have also co-written several books.
The gallery’s three-member judging panel – which included curatorial staff Sarah Engledow and Joanna Gilmour – awarded Grealy the $25,000 cash prize, and highly commended Canet-Gibson’s Mastura and Benavente’s Reinaissance Rose.
Mastura is an outdoor portrait of an Australian-born Muslim mother of three, taken on the streets of Perth. Renaissance Rose uses traditional film to capture a darkly-lit young girl in a style “reminiscent of the great artists of the Renaissance period”.
Other subjects who made the finalists list included racing driver Mark Webber, fashion designer Alex Perry, and Tom E Lewis, the Indigenous actor famous for his role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
The work of all 49 finalists will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra until 18 June.
“Overall, the photographs selected don’t comprise a particularly upbeat exhibition. However, in contrast to the notoriously depressing show of 2014, for example, none of the subjects is actually dead, and there’s no one injecting heroin, imperturbably, into her neck,” the judges said.
