Tim Storrier wins richest portrait prize in the world

WINNER OF THE DOUG MORAN PORTRAIT PRIZE
The Lunar Savant (portrait of McLean Edwards)
by Tim Storrier
acrylic on linen

The Lunar Savant (portrait of McLean Edwards) by Tim Storrier has just won the First Prize in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize - worth $AUD 150,000 

It's the richest portrait prize in the world. [Note: Just to give some sense of perspective, according to Google, as of today, $AUD 150,000 equates to £89,160 in the UK; €99,910 in Europe  and $117,525 in the USA]

However the BIG story is the backstory about how the portrait came to be entered for the competition in the first place - which makes for fascinating reading. I'm guessing the sentiments expressed will be ones that many artists will have known at some point in their career.

About the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize

Founded in 1988, the aim of the prize over the last 29 years has been to encourage

both excellence and creativity in contemporary Australian portraiture by asking artists to interpret the look and personality of a chosen sitter, either unknown or well known.

The competition is only open to:

• Australian citizens or 
• an artist legally resident in Australia for the 12 months preceding the entries close date

The judges of this year's competition were:

• Daniel Thomas AM - an art historian and curator, who was once 
• chief curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 
• then Senior Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia and, 
• from 1984 to 1990, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia
• Wendy Sharpe - an Australian artist who has won an awful lot of awards 
• Greta Moran - a founding Director of the Moran Arts Foundation which she established with her late husband Doug Moran in 1988. 

First Prize

Tim Storrier's portrait of his friend the artist McLean Edwards is to my mind the absolute stand out portrait amongst the finalists - it's head and shoulders above the others - in more ways than one. (notwithstanding the fact the finalists included a self-portrait by McLean Edwards).

Standing almost two metres tall, the portrait is one of the largest in the competition and certainly one of the most beautiful and arresting, depicting a disheveled-looking Edwards in a stark, mystical night landscape with a cigarette dangling loosely from one hand, a bemused look on his ruddy face and one shoe noticeably absent.Doug Moran Art Prize Won by a Portrait Rejected by the Archibald | Jane Albery, Broadsheet Melbourne

Judge Daniel Thomas described the portrait as one that

“went outside his personal mythology and produced an affectionate, teasing, ‘friendship painting’ of a wild fellow artist”.

Interestingly, according to the Sydney Morning Herald

• this is the first time Tim Storrier has entered the Doug Moran Portrait Prize competition. 
• the portrait was "screened out" by the the judges of the Art Gallery of NSW (presumably in relation to the Archibald Prize)

On collecting his prize money Storrier apparently commented as follows

"That picture should have been really called Lazarus, because the judges of the Art Gallery of NSW in their wisdom screened it out; it did not make the cut..... It's interesting isn't it? It's two different institutions with two different value systems at work." Tim Storrier quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald

Storrier was also in the news earlier this year for blasting the choice of winner for The Archibald Prize - see John Olsen and Tim Storrier blast judges of Archibald Prize dailytelegraph.com.au - they accused the judges of picking a "bland" portrait. He reiterated his criticism that the board of the Art Gallery of NSW had been taken over "by a postmodernist cabal" driven by fashion and political caution. in the interview he gave to the Sydney Morning Herald.

That commentary makes more sense now it turns out that even pre-eminent portrait painters can feel very aggrieved about how selections are made for prestigious competitions!

“It’s just amazing how a limping dog can end up winning a race, isn’t it?”Tim Storrier on his Doug Moran win after being rejected for The Archibald

Storrier has very definitely for both street cred and a track record as both a portrait painter and winner of major awards.

• He has won the Sulman Prize twice with 
• 1968: a painting of a motorbike accident in the outback (Suzy 350) when he was 19 years of age
• 1984: a painting called The Burn
• He's a previous winner of The Archibald (Portrait) Prize with his faceless painting of The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch) (see my previous post Tim Storrier wins the $75,000 Archibald Prize 2012).
• He then went on to win the Packing Room Prize in 2014 for his portrait of 'Sir Les Patterson' one of the messier inventions of John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE - Australian comedian, satirist, artist, and author.

His work is also included in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York and all major Australian art museums.
I just wish he'd have a shot at the BP Portrait Award so I could get to see one of his portraits - as they are always fascinating if not a total conundrum dressed up as a portrait.

You can see more of Storrier's portraits/artworks on his website. This is a video about him.

You can read about McLean edwards perspective on the portrait and the win by his friend in
Head to head — Tim Storrier v McLean Edwards in Australia’s richest art prize

The Finalists

30 portraits made it through to the Finals of the Doug Moran Prize. (I like the fact every finalist wins $AUD 1,000).

• The finalists are a mix of well known artists and emerging artists.
• You can see a selection of them in this Guardian article Doug Moran portrait prize 2017 finalists: from Isla Fisher to Anh Do – in pictures
• There is also a page on the website with the images of a longer list of semi-finalists

This is a very short video about the judging

The Exhibition

The Doug Moran Portrait Prize Exhibition opens tomorrow

• Dates: 19 October to 17 December 2017
• Venue: Juniper Hall, 250 Oxford Street, Paddington in Sydney.
• Hours: Open Thursday to Sunday 10am to 4pm
• Admission: Free

The Juniper Hall venue is a former gin distillery in Paddington and the oldest building in Sydney, which was fully restored in 1988 and bought by the Moran Foundation in 2012 from the National Trust. It's used as an art gallery.

Previous Winners

On this page of the website you can see images of the previous winners and finalists between 2009 and 2016

Reference:

• Tim Storrier wins Doug Moran Portrait Prize with painting of friend McLean Edwards | Sydney Morning Herald - contains interesting comments by Storrier on both how the portrait was painted and repeats his criticisms of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Doug Moran Art Prize Won by a Portrait Rejected by the Archibald | Broadsheet Melbourne - excellent interview with Storrier and explanation of the back story to this win
• Doug Moran National Portrait Prize goes to Tim Storrier | Brisbane Times
• Tim Storrier wins Doug Moran prize for portrait of McLean Edwards | The Guardian - completely missed the interesting back story!