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Friday 5 November 2010

Suzanne Archer is the winner of the Dobell Prize 2010 winner for her self portrait.

The Dobell Prize for Drawing is one of the most coveted art awards in Australia.  The Dobell Prize was first awarded in 1993 and was initiated by the trustees of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation with the 2010 winner receiving $25,000

• On display Friday 5 November 2010 to 30 January 2011 at the Art Gallery of NSW

Suzanne Archer is the winner of the 2010 Dobell Prize and takes away the $25,000 purse.  This year there were 635 entries, of which 45 are included in the exhibition.

The subject of the winning drawing is a self-portrait of the artist in her studio.   At either side of the central form of her face are some of the objects she has gathered there – a desiccated kangaroo and a sculpture of a horse’s head the artist made from wood found in the nearby bush. It is part of a larger body of work that has arisen from drawings Archer made of animals at the Veterinary Science laboratories at Sydney University in 2004, as well as of skulls and bones collected near her bush studio, and from a developing awareness, arising out of her relationship with these animal remains, of her own mortality.

Suzanne Archer is a senior painter, sculptor, printmaker and teacher who has lived and worked at Wedderburn in the south-west Sydney region, since the late 1980s. Born in 1945 in Surrey, England, she studied at Sutton School of Art prior to migrating to Australia in 1965. She has exhibited widely since the mid 60s, was granted residencies in New York and Paris in 1978-79 and has won numerous awards including a fellowship from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council in 1993 and the Wynne Prize in 1994. She has been a Dobell Prize finalist three times (in 2000, 2002 and 2009).

Alun Leach-Jones is the 2010 Judge of  the Dobell Prize that attracted 635 entries this year  

The Dobell Prize for Drawing has often been the subject of discussion and debate about the nature of drawing.  What constitutes a drawing is however deliberately not outlined in the conditions of entry.  That has been left for competing artists to define by their practice and for each individual judge, annually appointed by the trustees of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, to determine in the process of looking at all the entries.  This flexible, open-minded approach has ensured that the greatest variety of drawings is submitted each year.

A condition of the Dobell Prize for Drawing is that the Art Gallery of New South Wales automatically acquires the prize-winning drawing.

On view:    
Friday 5 November 2010 to 30 January 2011
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Domain, Sydney

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