Finalists have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Winner and Highly Commended for the National Photographic Portrait Prize since December. It is our pleasure to announce the Winner for 2018 is Lee Grant for her portrait titled Charlie and Highly Commended has been awarded to Filomena Rizzo for her portrait titled My Olivia. Dr Christopher Chapman, Senior Curator at the Portrait Gallery and co-judge of this year’s Prize says it was the power of humanness that shone through in the two award-winning portraits.
‘It’s a big deal to make it through to the final exhibition selection and with my fellow judges Petrina Hicks and Robert Cook, I was looking closely at how the portraits spoke to me, how they conveyed their story uniquely,’ said Dr Chapman.
‘As the possible winners came into view from within a very strong field, it felt like we were distilling something of the essence of portraiture, and the winning portraits possessed that essence for us.’
Co-judge and photographer Ms Petrina Hicks added ‘it felt as though the distilling process was to extract truth – that we narrowed down the images that felt true.’
Co-judge and Curator at the Art Gallery of Western Australia Mr Robert Cook appreciated that both works depict a young individual making their own way in their lives and into the wider world.
‘It’s like both subjects are facing futures that are uncertain. And they’re doing so bravely. It’s the bravery that you have when you’re afraid, when you yourself might crumble and you figure there’s only a fifty-fifty shot at making it through. What the artists have done here is present this dilemma, one we all get on some level, with compassion, without artifice and without false heroics,’ said Mr Cook.
Ms Grant was both thrilled and honoured to be named the Winner of this year’s National Photographic Portrait Prize.
‘I can’t quite put into words how grateful I am. I have been a Canberra girl for most of my life, so there is an extra personal significance in being able to share this work in my old hometown in one of the country’s most esteemed and respected institutions,’ said Ms Grant. ‘An acknowledgement like this is massive and will encourage me to keep going and to keep sharing stories that are important to me and that I believe deserve to be in the national conversation.’
Ms Grant will receive $30,000 cash from the Portrait Gallery, lighting equipment from Profoto to the value of $15,000 and paper supplies from Ilford to the value of $5,000.
